


The Estate

by bokunojinsei



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Disturbing Themes, Don't Make Me Turn This Car Around Will, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Please Will This Fic is Already Too Long, Seriously Will Needs to Stop, Slow Build, Will thinks too much, lots of introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-23 02:06:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 51,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9636134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokunojinsei/pseuds/bokunojinsei
Summary: "Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding."-Diane ArbusChiyoh had shot Will down in the street, his forgiveness falling with a clatter to the pavement. Hannibal, once intent on his belief that only by consuming Will could he be free of him, decides impulsively to try something a little different than what he had planned.Or: What if Hannibal hadn't tried to eat Will after he drugged him in Florence? What if he'd decided to run away with him instead?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a _very_ belated gift. The request was to write something that took place when Will and Hannibal met up in Florence. The initial idea was for them to "run away" together and see what happened. Instead, it turned into an excessively verbose trip into Will's mind as he tries to come to terms with his relationship with Hannibal.
> 
> I wanted to come at this from a slightly different angle than I've read or written before. I've never seen Will as an innocent victim of Hannibal's or a product of Hannibal's manipulations. I wanted to really press on that.
> 
> This was supposed to be a oneshot. 60 pages in I realized that wasn't going to happen. I have the first 3 parts written and I'll post one per day. The 4th part I'm still finishing, but I'll have it done by the time I'm supposed to post it, so consider this done. 
> 
> I'm sorry I've been so absent. Hopefully this is a decent sacrifice to the gods of fic writers with bad updating habits.

Will wasn’t sure how he’d gotten here. He knew, of course, _how_ he’d gotten here. A boat, a train, a cab. In hindsight the boat had been ridiculous and unnecessary and he vowed to stay off the open sea for at least a year after that debacle. He really hadn’t thought that through, but there had been more than enough time to simmer over the impulsivity of the dramatic decision while stuck in the middle of the Atlantic for two weeks.

Don’t get it wrong. Will loved himself a good boat trip any day, but being stuck with nothing but ghostly apparitions from his failures and enough self-doubt to capsize the vessel was not exactly the best call he could make. No, next time he made a decision by the seat of his pants to chase after a notorious serial killer, he should probably just take a plane.

It had only gone downhill from there. He’d found Hannibal’s old home—the imposing and shambled mess that it was—and Chiyoh along with it. Chiyoh had been a surprise, but the train had been a nice change. No waves rocking back and forth underneath them, knocking each doubt to seed further and further into Will’s brain. Just the steady thump of the tracks and an understanding that he was closer to Hannibal now. He was closer to answers.

Answers to what, he wasn’t sure, but he could figure that out when he got there.

Then Chiyoh threw him off the damn train like a sack of potatoes. Will should have seen it coming. He really should have. Honestly, with how everything had been going he should have expected her to stab him and then throw him off, cackling as the train disappeared into the darkness, but no. He had been so damned shocked by the whole incident that he had spent a good two minutes face down in the railroad tracks before he managed to force himself to get up and limp away with whatever sliver of dignity he had left.

He would have preferred being stabbed. He had practice with that.

And then time had blurred together like white noise until, finally, he was in Italy. He was staring at Hannibal’s grotesque valentine. He was smelling a whisper of Hannibal’s scent in the catacombs; the spice of his cologne. He was seeing the aftermath of the rage Hannibal had instilled within every aspect of Jack’s psyche. He was observing the warped and distorted caricature Hannibal had inspired Bedelia to become.

During all of this, he was looking. He was seeing glimmers of light sweeping around the corners like a person just stepping out of view. He was tasting the bitter tang of a man just out of reach.

Hannibal was here. In this place.

Will could see the man smearing careless finger paint all over Palermo. He was doing it on purpose. His presence was an open invitation—gaudy and tacky and obvious. It wasn’t until Will had stopped caring that he had figured out where all the signs pointed to.

Seeing Bedelia as she was had been a catalyst of sorts. He had laughed at her. He had turned his nose up. Look at the woman who had dismantled herself to survive the great Hannibal Lecter. After that had followed a sweeping jealousy. She had no scars. No wounds. She wasn’t bleeding out on the floor. She was untouched.

Then, Will was angry. 

All of these people—Jack, Bedelia, Alana—they had no idea. They had been struck in a passing blow. Hannibal had glanced by them. He had shaved past them. Their anger and betrayal was nothing compared to Will’s. Will had looked behind the teeth and into the belly of the beast. He had put his head in the lion’s mouth and had it snap shut. He was the only one. The rest of them were collateral damage.

He quashed any associated guilt the moment it tried to whimper in his ear.

He hadn’t even bothered to say anything to Jack when he walked out. Maybe Jack would have tried to stop him, maybe he wouldn’t, but Will didn’t care to find out. He didn’t care at all anymore. Hannibal had shown himself to everyone but him. He had allowed Bedelia to follow him into the oily black of his escape. He had stepped from the shadows to placate Jack’s ire. But for Will?

For Will, he had dodged and ducked around corners like a child playing hide and seek. After everything, he had tossed Will into silence. So Will had resolved himself to stop trying. If Hannibal wanted Will to find him, then he would be found. Obviously that wasn’t the case, so why should he bother trying any longer? Hannibal was still pulling all the strings like the brilliant puppet master he was. Will wasn’t keen to keep being tugged along.

He called a cab and let it drive.

And that was how he got here.

But how? The reason, the motive, the impulse? That was something Will didn’t have an answer to. He had seen the museum out of the corner of his eye and gotten out of the cab without a second thought. It was pulling him in the way that only one thing had pulled him before, and somehow he _knew._ And damn if that didn’t just piss him off more.

When he’d seen Hannibal sitting before the painting, sketching away as though oblivious to his surroundings, Will had noticed the pause and shift as his scent was caught in the air. His legs had moved on autopilot, bringing him to the bench and sitting down next to his own personal phantom. “No disappearing around corners this time?” he had wanted to ask. He didn’t.

Instead, they had fallen into the same song and dance they had always sauntered into. The bloated metaphors and agonizing avoidance of being straightforward. Hannibal had stared at him with an affection that was discomfiting and Will found himself smiling in spite of himself. It was infuriating. What had been the point of this? What now? Will had come all this way and now here they were, sitting on a bench talking like pretentious poets and avoiding the fact that they had been avoiding each other for months.

Will couldn’t decide if he had expected anything different.

When they were walking out together, side by side, Will hadn’t been entirely sure why he had pulled the knife out of his pocket. Perchance he really was going to stab Hannibal right there in the middle of a crowded square. Maybe he just wanted to hold on to a lifeline to feel like he wasn’t being dragged right back into the spider’s web. He could even argue he was just grasping a physical manifestation of his need to cut the strings between the two of them. Whatever it was, he never found out.

After all, getting shot can be a bit distracting.

Once again, he should have expected it. It wasn’t as though Chiyoh had wandered off into the distance after they “parted ways” on the train. She had known exactly where Will was going and who he was looking for. So, Will should have expected it.

He didn’t expect it.

Will had no idea how he had gotten from the plaza to some apartment, but he was pretty sure Hannibal had all but carried him there. Part of him had wanted to ask why no one had insisted they go to a hospital. The amount of people who must have witnessed the entire ordeal couldn’t have been a small number, but Will didn’t ask. Instead, he focused on the fact that it felt like his shoulder was being ripped in half and he was pretty sure Hannibal found the whole situation amusing beyond belief if the smug look in his eyes was anything to go by.

When he felt the knife in his hands, for one brief and heart-rending moment he thought that was it. Hannibal was going to kill him with a witty one-liner about dropping his forgiveness and that was going to be the end of it. Will had come all this way to be killed by a metaphor. He hadn’t even decided whether or not he was going to use the stupid knife. That just wasn’t fair.

But then Hannibal had dosed him up with god knows what and Will had decided there was no point in arguing with fate anymore. He was tired. He’d lost a lot of blood— _again_ —and Hannibal’s hands were warm and his face was mocking. So Will decided to fall prey to the “come what may” mentality as he began to slip under.

Hannibal had him now. It didn’t matter how he’d gotten here. He was here. So, come what may.

In the darkness of his own mind, as the flickering light of the room faded away, Will saw Abigail’s neck slither open into a viscous red and pour onto the floor. He watched her smile wan. He watched her eyes dull. He could feel the cold and unforgiving tile of Hannibal’s kitchen floor beneath his palms.

The first time he came to, it was in a fog. The world was blurry and askew. He saw Hannibal looming over a table—not noticing him, staring blankly, unmoving, lost in thought. Will tried to hold onto the image and commit it to memory. Hannibal’s visage came so close to exuding _uncertainty_ that Will wanted to grasp at every inch of it to prove such a thing was possible, but he started to slip again and suddenly the world shifted back into black.

He found himself back in his head again. He could hear the rain and feel it hitting his face and plastering his hair to his forehead. He heard a shuddering, gasping breath and looked down to see Alana at his feet. Her mouth was open in silent pain and she choked and swallowed against it. He set his jacket over her broken form, but the gesture felt empty as he walked into the house and left her pain behind him.

The next time he woke, it was to a cacophony of sound. Shouts, bangs, snarls of struggle. The table Hannibal had been looming over before had slammed into Will’s chest and he realized that was what had managed to jar him from his comatose state. He blinked his eyes blearily at the scene, trying to focus. It was impossible to hold onto anything. The lights and colors of the room were slipping in and out like fine silk threads. They slid over his eyes and he couldn’t catch the strands.

He saw figures moving erratically. There was a spray of red—arterial—and Will felt something hot dripping down his cheek. Another shout echoed into the room, but Will was already too far gone. The sound faded away like an echo as he dipped under again.

He was in the observatory now. Jack was stepping away from him and he could feel the depressing dangle of the straight jacket’s straps as they fell from around his body. With each rustle of the fabric, Will felt strangled.

And there was Beverly; the body she’d once been sectioned off like a timestamp. As he walked forward, each separate piece of her jarred him. Each piece was like a moment flashing into the chaotic heat of his mind. He could see them like imprints on his retinas. He could feel them like he was standing right next to Hannibal. Like he was dissecting his own life to put on display. She was the grotesque, picturesque exhibit of Hannibal’s lies.

Of the lies Will told himself.

He may as well have killed her himself. There was no fine line there. There was no distinction. Will had done this to her.

When Will opened his eyes a third time, it was due to vibration. For a brief, delirious moment, he thought he was with Chiyoh. He could feel each jostle of the tracks under the train. He could hear the steady heartbeat of the engine. He could see landscape passing him by.

Then he realized he could make out no distinct details. His eyes were half-mast and determined to stay that way. His arms weren’t responding to his brain. Locked-in syndrome. Trapped in his own body. His breathing began to speed up. His heart was hammering. A shadow moved past his vision and there was a sharp pinch under his arm.

The world faded away.

This time, there were no dreams. His thoughts were disorganized and disordered. He saw a flash of a beast jumping through the window in his home in Wolf Trap. He felt the gun heavy in his hands. He felt bone breaking beneath his knuckles. He saw a man climbing from the belly of a horse. He felt the gun weighing against his fingers. He felt Hannibal’s palm slip over his wrist. He saw the shocked face of Garrett Jacob Hobbs as he riddled him with bullets. The gun was lighter than air. He watched Hannibal gently pry his grasp from Abigail’s convulsing throat.

Will woke with a start, shooting up from where he lay. Immediately, he regretted the movement. His head was filled with nails and his shoulder had been ripped into a thousand pieces. Groaning, he lay back down and closed his eyes, willing the world to stop spinning and his body to stop burning. The pillow under his head was soft, decadently so, and for the longest time he just lay there.

He half expected to fall back under again. He’d gotten used to the lull of it. It was as though life was a dream and he was simply drifting from moment to moment.

But his consciousness was clingy now. It refused to let go. Grudgingly, Will forced his eyes opened and hissed as the light made his pupils contract unpleasantly. The room began to make itself known.

He meant to utter something like “What?” or “Where?” but it came out in a garbled and dry-mouthed “Wenguh?”

Gritting his teeth together so roughly he was sure he’d lose a layer of bone in the act, Will pushed up off the bed again, swinging his legs over the side.

The room he was in was an odd one. Not odd in the sense that it was unusual in some way, but odd in the sense that this was not the sort of place he would usually find himself in even in the most unique of circumstances. It was musty and old. Heavy, embroidered drapes hung across the large window that was currently casting sunlight across the room in dusty streaks. A hideous oriental rug was on the floor. The bed he was in had four posts like something out of a princess novel. There was even a fireplace; stone hearth and all.

Frowning in confusion, Will looked at the bedside table. On it was a sealed bottle of water and an equally sealed bottle of painkillers. He blinked at them. After a moment of debate, he reached for them and screwed them open. Opening the painkillers took more effort than he would ever admit to, but he’d just been shot in the shoulder so it wasn’t as though he didn’t have an excuse.

Shot in the shoulder. Shit. Will shot up off the bed, pills halfway down his throat. The action resulted in a coughing fit that lasted a good three minutes before he was calm enough to hobble over to the window and look outside. What he saw held him there as though the vines crawling up the side of the house had woven their way up his legs.

This house.

He knew this house.

This was the Lecter estate.

Self-preservation kicking into his muscle memory, he downed the rest of the water without a thought, staring vacantly out into the overgrown mirage that was the grounds of the estate. It was hauntingly beautiful when he had been here last, covered in mist and mystery. Now it looked a shambles. Nature had stolen this place back for itself, covering the statues in weeds and earth. Somehow, though, it was still beautiful.

He tore his eyes from the sight and turned back to survey the room. His coat and shoes were by an austere chair in the corner of the room. How had he gotten here? The last thing he could remember was being shot. There was a faint image of Hannibal dragging him somewhere. A needle. Hannibal had drugged him. He was sure about that, but why take him here? Or had it been Chiyoh? Had she deemed him unworthy of Hannibal’s help, if that’s what Hannibal really had been offering, and lugged him back to this desolate place?

No, that couldn’t be it. Chiyoh was nothing if not unpredictable. Will had learned that the hard way, but if there was anything he was certain of, it was that the last place that mercurial woman would want to go would be here. This wasn’t the kind of place someone returned to. It was haunted. It was separate from the universe. If you managed to escape it, you didn’t come back.

Why, then, was Will here?

Will looked helplessly at the empty bottle in his hand. It had been sealed, just like the painkillers. The message that gave was a distinctly nonthreatening one. Purposefully so. The only logical explanation—the only one his mind could repeatedly jump to—was that it was Hannibal. This was Hannibal telling Will that the drugs were done. He was awake now. He was free to remain that way.

Tossing the bottle carelessly onto the bed, Will stepped cautiously towards the closed door, grabbing his shoes and tugging them on. Conceivably it would be locked. This freedom was an illusion. Finally, Hannibal had given up on trying to persuade and lure him and now he had simply taken Will captive. Like Miriam Lass. Like Abigail.

Will swallowed against the lump in his throat and reached for the brass handle of the door. Slowly and with no small level of suspicion, he turned it.

The door opened without the slightest hint of resistance. Other than the decay of the heavy wood and the rust of the hinges, it opened with minimal effort. Will let go of it like it burned him and watched it slowly creak open. This was a trick. It had to be. Hannibal wouldn’t go through all of this just to let Will walk out unscathed. And unscathed he would be, despite the wounds checkering his body. Hannibal hadn’t given him any of these marks. The gashes and cuts were from Chiyoh. So was the bullet. For all intents and purposes, Hannibal had merely knocked him out through the worst of the pain.

That didn’t sit right with Will. It didn’t fit the narrative. It wasn’t fluid.

There was no way in all the levels of hell that Hannibal would just patch him up and let him go. Not now. Not after everything.

There was no way.

Will stepped into the hall. The silence of the house hit his eardrums like the pressure of a brutal altitude. He cracked his jaw and tried to get them to pop. God, this house felt smothering with its unknowns and dark corners. Will wanted to walk out and never look back.

Could he?

Hannibal was nowhere to be seen. There didn’t seem to be a soul anywhere. No lights were on save for the natural glaze of the sun from the unwashed windows. It was cold and dank and as unlived in as he remembered it being from his quick stay when he had come here looking for answers. It seemed like that time had been years ago. He felt like he had found answers then—caught a glimpse into the demon hiding under Hannibal’s skin. Now the estate was only offering him more questions. He felt the ambiguity of the situation crawling on his skin like a spider.

He crept down the stairs and towards the front door. Still nothing. Not a sound. Not a whisper. In a dramatic snap of paranoia, he whirled around, fully expecting Hannibal to be looming over him. There was no one there. Was this really it? He was free to go?

Testing the waters of his own subconscious, Will pushed open the front door and stepped through the threshold. The air was cold and biting on his face and he felt the healing wound on his neck pull uncomfortably. He descended the steps. He walked down the pathway. He was nearly fifty feet away from the house before he realized that he had left his coat back in the room. His muscles felt stiff and abused in the cold.

He was all the way to the wrought iron fence when he stopped and turned around. Still no Hannibal. Nothing. Not even the wind made a sound.

And against all of his logic and reason and sanity, Will felt inexplicably angry.

“That’s it?” he shouted at the house. The exterior stared back at him, unresponsive and apathetic. It towered over him. Somehow, it felt mocking. Will scowled and dug his fingers into the bicep of his bad arm, trying to redirect the pain in his shoulder. His words left him unbidden, raw and loud. “Really? I’m just walking away?” He wasn’t sure if he was yelling at himself, the house, or Hannibal. It didn’t really matter.

When he still received no response, Will heaved out a sigh and let his back slump. He knew in his heart of hearts that this was the point. This was Hannibal’s goal. He knew without a doubt that Hannibal had done this on purpose; just another part of his elaborate, never-ending game.

He had given Will a choice. He was letting him choose.

Because if Will was given a choice, Hannibal was well aware that Will would want to know _why_ the choice was offered in the first place. Will would want to know why too badly to leave. He would want answers. He would want to know why he wasn’t forced to stay. He would want to know why Hannibal was letting him just walk away.

Knowing this, Will was fully capable of recognizing the manipulation—the lack of choice. He could see it easily enough. This _was_ Hannibal forcing his hand. If Will walked away, he would always wonder. He would have come all this way for nothing. Everything would have been pointless.

He couldn’t leave. Not now. Not until he could make sense of the mess his life had become. Not until he could find some method to assuage his pathological need for closure.

After all, hadn’t he decided “come what may”? If he walked away now, where would he go? There was no going back to his life. The life he had made for himself before Hannibal was no longer there. The past was empty space. He hadn’t lied as they sat in front of that painting. Hannibal had asked him flat out where the definitive lines of life lay.

_Before you and after you._

Will was in the after now. After Hannibal. After Abigail. After. He was stuck in a limbo that had no foreseeable end or destination. If he left now, it would be a return to purgatory. He would be stuck in between with nowhere to go. Nothing would ever end.

With that knowledge simmering resolutely in his gut, Will steeled himself and strode back into the estate.

The house was barren. It was filled with old furniture and art. The grandiosity of it was floor to ceiling—busts, trophies, books, antiques—but it held an emptiness that was so palpable that it slinked into Will’s bones and made him feel stiff and tense. This place was the physical representation of a Hannibal Will had never known. Hannibal was Will’s before and after. But this house? This house was Hannibal’s before.

It made Will feel distinctly separate and unwelcome. He felt like an intruder.

With each of the innumerable rooms, Will found no one. Door by door, he discovered that he was alone. Doubt began to creep into the back of his mind like a disease, growing with each passing step into the quiet of the house. Had Hannibal left him here? Had he been cast out into the past like an unwanted memory?

Will shook his head and the thoughts away with it. He may have willingly subjected himself to the manipulation of his curiosity, but he would not allow Hannibal to control his self-worth. Not this time.

He wasn’t the weak and shivering mess that Hannibal had found all that time ago. He wasn’t bogged down by the crippling illusions of encephalitis. He wasn’t overcome by the guilt of his own imagination. He was not an extension of Hannibal, no matter how hard the man had tried to make it so. He was, instead, the man who understood the monster—who _saw_ him. 

That thought, above all others, gave him the confidence he needed. This hadn’t been what Hannibal had intended. Hannibal, for all his love of the unexpected, had never consciously meant to be seen the way Will had seen him. He had wanted a toy. He had wanted something to wind up and mold into a masterpiece of his choosing. Instead, Will had stared right through Hannibal’s skin and seen the molten rock underneath. He had seen. He hadn’t looked away. He’d stared right at it until he had damn near gone blind, and Hannibal hadn’t expected that.

For all Hannibal’s boasts and goads, Will knew without a second’s hesitation that he had surprised him. He had been unexpected. He had gone outside the intended mold. That gave him confidence. And maybe a slight twinge of narcissism, if he was honest.

Eventually, he found his way into an astoundingly large kitchen. It must have been a thing to behold when this house was alive. Now it was covered in dust and age and decay. Will frowned. If Hannibal was really here, Will would have assumed this would be the first place he cleaned. Maybe Hannibal really had left.

Not willing to follow that train of thought any longer than he needed to, Will sifted through the cupboards and cabinets until he found an old store of wine. The label was faded and Will wasn’t about to pretend in the gloomy solitude of an abandoned kitchen that he knew the first thing about how good it was, but after an inordinate amount of time searching for a corkscrew and a cup, Will found himself slumped into the breakfast nook wiping the cup out with his shirt and pouring a glass.

“I’m supposed to let this breathe,” he muttered sullenly into the wine. He lasted about half a minute before he tossed back a mouthful.

He started coughing immediately. It was acidic and bitter. Grimacing, he examined the bottle. It looked like it had been sealed properly, but there was no way to tell for sure now. He sighed and set the glass down with a thump, staring out the opaque window through the dirt and wondering what his next move should be.

He didn’t know how long he sat there before he heard it. The front door opened and closed and there was the sound of heavy footsteps shifting around in the foyer. Each click of the heel echoed through the empty house. Each staccato beat made his lip twitch and his fingers tighten around his undrunk wine. Even when the footsteps came to a stop and he felt the unmistakable presence of another person in the doorway of the kitchen, Will kept staring blankly out over the canvass of the grounds.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not, Hannibal broke the silence. “You remain.”

Will blinked. He heard the rustle of a bag and a shift of fabric, but Hannibal didn’t move from the doorway. Sighing and with a bitter smile, he said. “Yeah, seems like it.” If he kept looking out the window, this could all still be a dream. Hannibal’s voice would remain this ethereal thing that seeped into his consciousness like a poison that couldn’t quite take root.

After a long moment, there was more rustling and footsteps further into the kitchen. “I’ve turned on the power. I left to buy us some food, although I see you already found the wine.” Hannibal said it as conversationally as you please, as though they were just roommates catching up on the day.

Will let out a soundless laugh and looked at the glass in his hand. He hadn’t noticed that the power was on. He hadn’t even thought to try the lights. “The wine is awful.”

 “Really?” Hannibal’s tone was light and casual. With anyone else it would have seemed forced. With him, it was all just part of the play. Will could hear him putting groceries away. The entire situation was surreal. “Perhaps you would allow me to select the next vintage.”

Will rolled his eyes and shoved the glass away. “Be my guest.”

“On the contrary,” Hannibal rebutted. “You are mine.”

Suddenly, Will remembered where exactly they were and the true weight of it thundered onto his shoulders like a stack of bricks. For the first time in their conversation, he turned around to look at Hannibal. The other man was dressed in a white shirt and slacks, faced away as he placed items in the pantry. A discord of memory swept over Will of Hannibal in Baltimore before everything had fallen apart. It made his heart rend. “Why here, of all places?”

As though sensing that Will was finally looking at him, Hannibal turned around. His eyes were dark and unfathomable as they searched Will’s own. He leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms. “Of all the places, Will, I would assume you would recognize the significance of this one.”

“I know the significance. That’s why I’m confused. I didn’t think this was a place you’d ever come back to.”

Hannibal nodded in acquiescence and pursed his lips just slightly. “True, it is not a place I had ever expected to revisit.” He mulled over his words some more, chewing them. “But I found when I decided to change my plans for you in Italy, there were no other suitable places to bring you.”

Will’s eyebrows knit together. “Changed your plans?” His mind supplied images of Hannibal placing the knife in his hand, speaking of forgiveness, dosing him up to his eyeballs with drugs. He saw the muggy specter of Hannibal looming over a table, indecisive and contemplative. It clicked. “You were going to eat me.”

The ghost of a smile hinted at the corners of Hannibal’s eyes. “I was.” He held out his hands in a mock apology, but they quickly fell back to their task of emptying out the bags of food. “I was quite convinced that it was my best option, in fact.”

It was then that Will realized one of Hannibal’s habits. Whenever he was uncomfortable with a topic or was revealing far more honesty than he was used to, he had to busy himself. Like snapshots in a slideshow, Will remembered every time that Hannibal had been truly honest with him. Every single time, the man had begun to occupy himself apropos of nothing. His hands became restless and he would appoint himself a task in order to maintain his nonchalance and excuse himself from eye contact.

Right then, Will felt that he had taken another step forward on the chess board. “What changed your mind? Have I not marinated enough for your tastes?”

Hannibal turned to him in surprise, one brow raised. “Odd. Bedelia said something quite similar to me only days ago.”

Will felt an unwelcome stab of irritation slice low across his belly, dangerously close to the smile adorning his stomach. “You left Bedelia in quite a state.”

“Bedelia is in many states. Often simultaneously.” Will snorted and Hannibal regarded him with a curious glance. “Are you envious?”

“Of Bedelia?” Will cast a hand through the air as though throwing the mere concept to the floor. “Not likely.”

“Similar to the way a wolf does not envy a domesticated dog, I should suspect,” Hannibal commented idly, opening up the fridge to stock some vegetables away.

Will stood and walked over to the counter, leaning onto it with his elbows and watching Hannibal go about his business. The entire event had a hypnagogic quality to it. “This place is a mess.”

Hannibal froze for a moment, looking around as though he had just noticed the state of disrepair the house was in. “I suppose it is. Chiyoh was unlikely to stay in the main house, so I am unsurprised by the status of the estate.”

“She stayed in the guest house.” Will glanced out the window to the grounds, but couldn’t find the building he spoke of. It must have been on the other side. “I came in here, briefly, but she didn’t follow me. I took it for superstition.”

“Poor Chiyoh is afraid of ghosts?” Hannibal mused.

“I think she was paranoid you’d manifest from the walls.”

Hannibal said nothing to that and Will counted it as a win. He ran a finger through the dust on the counter. “Is the water working?”

“It is.”

Will chewed on the inside of his cheek. Cleaning was always something he’d done back at his home in Wolf Trap when he felt unsettled. Maybe it would have the same effect on him here. It seemed Hannibal wasn’t the only one who needed to do something with his hands.

Thankfully, Hannibal didn’t make Will ask, pointing to a bag he had left at the edge of the counter. “That bag will have cleaning supplies.”

Will bit back a smile. Of course Hannibal wouldn’t cook in squalor like this. Will remembered Hannibal’s house back in the states. It had always been pristine. The man’s skin had to practically be crawling in this place. Still, Will wasn’t doing this for Hannibal. He needed to have a task. He needed to feel like he was accomplishing something.

More than anything, he needed to feel like he wasn’t being smothered in the decay of Hannibal’s past. It was starting to make his eyes water and his throat itch. Or maybe that was just mold.

Snatching up the supplies from the bag, Will set about his work. Neither of them spoke for the longest time after that. Once Hannibal was done putting the food away, he picked up his own cloth and began fastidiously scrubbing the inside of the oven until the old thing nearly sparkled. They went on like that until late into the afternoon, stopping briefly for a silent lunch of sandwiches and wine, the simplest food Will had ever seen Hannibal eat, and didn’t stop again until the kitchen looked almost like livable space. Will’s shoulder was beginning to burn again. He hadn’t even realized how well the painkillers had been working until they had started to wear off. Scrubbing down the kitchen for hours on end probably didn’t help.

Once they had completed their mutually distracting undertaking, they had settled down in the breakfast nook with wine in real wine glasses and Hannibal had picked up the thread of conversation as though they had never dropped it in the first place.

“You told me that Chiyoh is the one who killed her tenant,” he said, taking a sip of his wine and glancing out the window towards the trees. “May I ask how, after so many long years, that event finally came to pass?”

Will stared at him for a moment, wondering if Hannibal had been down there—seen the display Will had left for him and never expected him to see. He decided he wasn’t ready to play. “We can’t stay in the kitchen forever. Maybe we should call a maid.”

Hannibal humored him. “Perhaps a live-in butler is in order. One requires help to maintain such an estate, after all.”

Will laughed, short and rough, and winced as his shoulder shifted. “Got any more painkillers that aren’t in a needle? Not that I don’t love your obsession with shooting me up, but I’d rather swallow my fate for a while.”

Hannibal drank his wine and said nothing, regarding Will with an unreadable expression.

Will read it. He was throwing Hannibal off guard. Will had never fallen into Hannibal’s line of polite society and socially acceptable behavior, but this level of candor was never really entertained between them. There was always this effervescent layer of simile and metaphor and implication. A layer that Will was damn tired of skirting over. “I’ll just go grab the bottle from the room. If I can find it again.”

Hannibal waved him off as Will began to stand, standing himself. “Please, Will. You are injured. Allow me.”

With a small frown, Will reluctantly allowed Hannibal to go fetch the pills. It took him mere moments to return and Will suspected that meant he had more than one stash of painkillers at the ready. He couldn’t decide if that was thoughtful or worrying. With a grimace, he took the offered pills and tossed them back with wine. “Probably not supposed to wash these down with this, but bottoms up.”

“Unless you plan on operating any heavy machinery tonight, I think you will be alright.” Hannibal sat the bottle on the windowsill and returned to his own glass. “I must admit, Will, I was not certain you would be here when I returned.”

“I almost left,” Will admitted. “I went all the way to the gate.”

“What changed your mind?”

“The same thing that stopped you from eating me, I guess,” Will replied, catching himself just short of shrugging. “My need for answers outweighed my need for a resolution.”

“Is it answers you seek?” Hannibal’s query maintained an air of innocence, but it was pressing. “Or a progression?”

Will narrowed his eyes at his wine glass and swirled the liquid around. “Whenever we progress I end up bleeding.” And then, before Hannibal could rattle off his end of the rapport, Will decided to have a go at his new tactic. In for a penny, after all. “Is that what you want, Hannibal?” His eyes skittered up to meet the ones staring at him from across the table. “For this to end in me bleeding again?”

To his credit, if Hannibal was surprised by the directness of the question, he didn’t show it. His gaze was a steady one. “That was never how I wished for this to end, Will.”

A bitter liquid rose in Will’s throat. He swallowed it down. “You wished for us to run away together,” he snapped. The next words were heavy on his tongue and he had to force them out. “With Abigail.” He knew he was treading on thin ice here. He wasn’t the only one at that table who was angry. He wasn’t the only one who had felt betrayed.

Hannibal regarded him silently for a dangerous moment. Slowly, he spoke. “Did I mishear you in the catacombs, Will?”

_I forgive you._

“I—“ Will’s jaw snapped shut and he closed his eyes. His fingers clenched and unclenched on his thigh. “No, you didn’t. Forgetting, though? You can’t ask that of me. You can’t ever ask that of me.”

“Nor would I. For you to forget all the events that have transpired between us would be to render everything that we have learned from one another a moot point. That is not something I would ever wish upon either of us.” Hannibal’s words were as impassioned as they had the capability of sounding and the intonation made Will open his eyes.

Will licked his lips, searched the blankness of Hannibal’s face, heard the inflection of the older man’s voice echo into the room. “Do you feel like you’ve succeeded?”

“Succeeded?”

“At whatever it is you intended for me. You had plans. I know you did.”

“Our story is far from over.”

Will laughed. “Will it ever be over?”

“All stories have a beginning and an end,” Hannibal responded thoughtfully. He refilled both of their glasses, leaning back into his chair. “I have never been the kind of man who desires to know the ending before its time.”

Once again, Will felt tired of the game. It seemed his patience was wearing thin and he could only take their normal sway of conversation in small doses. He threw out the first sentence that came to mind. “Have you ever been thrown off a train, Hannibal?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

“It hurts.”

Hannibal tilted his head to the side, inquisitive. “Is this avoidance or misdirection, Will?”

Will jutted his chin out in challenge. “You’re the psychiatrist.”

This time, Hannibal frowned. It looked like Will wasn’t the only one getting impatient. “Such jabs are beneath you.”

“Really? I’ll try harder, then,” Will sniped back quickly. He leaned forward on his elbows. His blood was starting to boil. His body was pulling in two different directions, as though it couldn’t decide whether or not it wanted to fight or give in. “I was never going to stab you in that square.” He didn’t know the truth of his own words until he’d said them. Now there was no taking them back. “You said I forgive how God forgives. If that’s the case, maybe I haven’t been able to forgive you yet.”

“Do you wish to show me your forgiveness, Will?” Hannibal asked. He crossed his legs under the table, seemingly unperturbed by the prospect.

“Jack got to show you his.” The words came out unwillingly and Will hated how petulant he sounded.

Hannibal scanned his eyes over Will’s face. “You feel cheated.”

Will’s eyes rolled and he looked away. “I think it’s safe to say that’s a fairly constant feeling for me at this point.”

“Then how would you resolve this?” Hannibal set his glass down on the table and steepled his fingers together. “Do you wish to kill me? Wound me? Feel my bones break beneath righteous fists?”

Will sighed. “There was a time where I knew the answer to that question. I could see it vividly in my head—in my dreams—but now? I don’t know, Hannibal. I don’t have an answer for you.”

“Then perhaps that is why you turned around at the gate. That is the answer you seek.”

Will shrugged and immediately groaned his regret as his shoulder throbbed viciously. “Can we stop for today? I know maybe you don’t even know how to stop.” He looked at Hannibal and found nothing in his expression to guide his words. “Maybe this is it for you. Talking circles around each other until we’re both blue in the face, but I’m tired, Hannibal. I’m really, truly, excruciatingly tired.”

Hannibal nodded and said nothing. His eyes were dark and enigmatic as he reached for his glass and contemplated the contents. Whether he said nothing out of courtesy to Will’s request or simply because he had nothing to say, there was no way to know for sure.

Will discovered he found the silence unnerving. “Aren’t you tired?”

The analysis of Hannibal’s wine ceased and dark eyes steadily rose to meet Will’s. For the first time that night, Will saw consideration in their depths. Hannibal was weighing his options. He was legitimately choosing what to say. “Perhaps you should get some rest, Will. You have had a long few days.”

Will paled. “Days? How long did you have me under?”

“The trip was not a short one. It has been four days since we reunited,” Hannibal replied, looking unbothered by the confession. “Your wound is unpleasant. I thought it best to let you heal for a day when we arrived.”

His mouth was flopping open like a landed fish, but try as he might, Will couldn’t wipe the surprise off his face. “You kept me unconscious for four days?”

“No, but your periods of lucidity were brief. I am not surprised you don’t remember them.”

“Hannibal, you—“ Will groaned and rubbed a hand over his face, wincing when his fingers caught a cut. It was starting to close up, but it was still tender. “You can’t keep doing these things to me. You can’t treat me like an inanimate object.” He leaned his head on his palm, trying to remember why he had stayed here. Did he have any sanity left? What kind of man willfully remained with the person who had done the things that Hannibal had done? Had Will completely lost his mind?

“Very well.”

Startled, Will looked up between his fingers. “What?”

“I will endeavor not to directly influence your coherence again.”

Will was back to landed fish mouth flopping.

Hannibal took pity. “You have displayed to me many times over that you are not a person I can entirely anticipate, Will,” he said. He took a leisurely sip of his wine, rolling it over his tongue before he continued. “I have made considerable efforts to guide you down the paths I wish to see you follow, but each and every time you exceed my expectations in ways that I could never have accounted for. For all my attempts, you have ultimately remained your own creation. Perhaps it is time for me to allow that creation to flourish rather than forcing your hand.”

“Hands off has never been your method, Hannibal.” Will allowed himself to consider this for a moment. Hannibal couldn’t possibly be serious. He was a man who needed control. He needed to dig his fingers deep into the flesh of life—pull at the tendons, twist the bones of it. Hannibal molded the body of the world how he saw fit. For him to offer to step back and release that hold was not only suspicious, but unbelievable. “As much as you preach your love of chaos, I can’t imagine you letting go entirely. Where would your game be then? It could spiral away from you completely. I can’t envision you allowing that.”

“Will.” The way Hannibal said his name was like punctuation, stealing the air from the room and ending all other sound. “The game has already spiraled away from me. I left my life in Baltimore. I can never return to Italy. I am sitting in a place where I had never desired to return, across the table from the only man I could never fully predict. If you are convinced that this has all been part of my master plan, I am sorry that I must disappoint you, but flattered by your apparent opinion of my omniscience.”

Will frowned, untrusting.

A sigh, so light it was barely a sound, found its way between Hannibal’s lips. “This waltz between us has been a fascinating one, my dear Will. For each step I take, you have matched with volatility. I make no claims that I have not enjoyed this dance, nor will I say that I am not curious to see where it leads. I will, however, agree to consider the prospect that perhaps the most interesting of twists that lie ahead of us might come to pass more easily should I ‘release the reigns’, so to speak.”

“So this is an experiment?” Will questioned, leaning towards Hannibal despite himself. He was hanging on this conversation and hated himself for it, but the idea Hannibal was presenting was a tempting one. It was a reimagining of everything they had come to be. Whether Hannibal was simply offering him the illusion of independence to sate him or it was indeed genuine, he couldn’t be sure, but it was tempting regardless. “You want to see what happens if you give me equal footing?”

“I have never seen you as beneath me.”

Will snorted. “You’ve had your foot at my throat from day one.”

A shuttered frown was jarring across Hannibal’s features then and he looked out the window contemplatively. “I had convinced myself otherwise, but perhaps you are right.”

Will knew that he should do more than stare, but he couldn’t help it. That was the most frank thing Hannibal had said all day and it was completely and utterly disorienting. “You’re serious about trying this, aren’t you?”

“’This’ is not so easily defined, but yes,” Hannibal agreed slowly. “For all my efforts, I am willing to recognize that a behavioral change might be necessary. I am capable of growth just as any other man. Were I to remain the same—my attitudes and actions unchanging and stagnant—my very character would become a redundancy.”

“So, what,” Will huffed and leaned back in his chair, raising his eyebrows. “This thing with you and me is making you a better man?”

“The conclusion of better or worse has yet to be seen, but the change is taking place regardless of denial.” Hannibal made a small, dismissive gesture with his hand. “You are a force of nature, Will. As unyielding as the surf, you have been weathering away at the stone facings of my consciousness. It seems only appropriate to see what time will reveal.”

This time, Will’s eye roll was so heavy it practically made sound. “No one talks like that. No one talks like this.”

A small smile ticked at the corner of Hannibal’s mouth. He recognized Will’s jab for what it was; a tease. “I’m afraid you can only ask so many changes of me at once.”

“I didn’t know I could ask for anything at all.”

“You have never tried.”

Will pressed his lips together and considered that. “Very well, what are you offering to try? I know you. You want a game. You want a show. You want to pull my string and watch me go.” His jaw clicked shut with a snap of teeth and he hoped to god that Hannibal wouldn’t notice that had rhymed.

Hannibal chuckled lowly. “I am suggesting a reconsideration of terms. I will cease to press you. I will not lift a finger to sway you. This place, after all, is the perfect location for such a task. There is nothing around for miles. No one is aware of our location.”

“Outside forces aren’t a factor.”

“Precisely. Circumstance has always intervened. Dear uncle Jack, Alana, Mason.” Hannibal’s lip curled in unveiled distaste at the last name. Will couldn’t help but mirror the expression. “Though their influences served to instigate events and tint the dynamic, they also made it impossible to remain uninterrupted.”

“You make it sound as though if you had it your way, you and I would be alone on an island until the end of time.” Will had meant it to come out as a joke, but Hannibal’s ensuing silence made the humor catch in his throat. “That’s never happening, you know.”

Hannibal shook his head. “I wouldn’t wish it. I do not wish to separate you from the world, Will. Merely to see you enter it as you truly are.”

“What I truly am should be for me to define, not you.”

“Then define it. As I said, I will step back and give you full reign to do so.”

“And if you are overcome by the temptation to meddle?”

“I am far more patient than you give me credit for.”

Will wanted to scoff at that. Patience? Was that what Hannibal considered his tantrum back in Baltimore? Had he given Will time, had he not pressed and bullied and insisted on him running away at the drop of a hat, maybe Will would have gone. He had wanted to. Some desperate, disconnected part of himself had wanted nothing more than to run away with Hannibal and straight into whatever world was set aside especially for them. He had wanted it.

But not on Hannibal’s terms. Hannibal’s terms had been unacceptable. It never could have happened that way.

That was when Will had an idea.

“Alright, alright. I might consider this.” Will laced his fingers together and looked Hannibal dead on, making sure he had the other man’s full attention. “But I have terms.”

Hannibal acknowledged him with nothing more than a quirked brow.

Will kicked his heel into the floor under the table. If he was going to do this, he might as well go for it. “You admit to trying to control this too much. That’s all good and fine, but the part of it that you aren’t saying is why that was a problem.” He could see that he had Hannibal’s unreserved attention now and being on the receiving end of that kind of focus was like drowning. Will had to take a deep breath before he continued. “Everything was on your terms. Everything was to your plan, your goals, your design. You say I am my own creation. You spoke of me emerging from a chrysalis, but what emerged was not me. It was only your image of me.”

Hannibal took a long draw of his wine, nodding. He remained silent.

“I’m perfectly capable of recognizing that what you want to do here is whimsy. You’re curious to see what will happen if you try something new and I’m surprisingly amenable to that.” Will shot a bitter half-smile towards his companion. “But that still leaves it on your terms. I’m not a sketch ripped out of your sketchbook. We do this, I speak freely. I act freely. I come and go if I wish and you can’t follow me or stop me from leaving. I can say what I want to say without the veil of pretty words and obscure references and you have to do the same. I know who you are. I know _what_ you are. There’s nothing to hide here, so if I’m going to be here, I’m not going to be here with your image. I’m going to be here with whoever you really are. No more illusions.”

The time it took for Hannibal to digest Will’s words was agonizingly extensive. For what felt like an eternity, he merely sipped his wine and stared off towards the waning sun hovering over the edge of the grounds. When Will was all but convinced that Hannibal was never going to say anything at all, the man spoke.

“No more illusions.”

“None. Open as a book.”

Hannibal’s lips pursed and then fell back into impassivity. “Then you shall do the same. It will be reciprocal.”

Bewildered that Hannibal was even considering agreeing to this, Will nodded. “That’s fair.” If he was honest, he was stunned that _he_ was agreeing to this. A sane man would walk away from here and never look back. A sane man would know that no matter how tempting this was, nothing good could come of it.

This house was a dangerous place. It was separate from society and it made the rest of the world seem inconsequential. Consequences felt improbable here. They felt far away.

Will ignored the intuition kicking around at the base of his skull and barged on. Beyond doubts and reservations, he wanted this. He wanted to see Hannibal without the guise. He wanted to see himself next to that—see what would reflect onto him. Maybe he was just drunk off of wine and painkillers and this would all end in one hell of a hangover.

Hannibal’s glass was empty and he pushed it away. “We remain at this estate for a time.”

“How long of a time?”

“I request that we leave that open to discussion at a later date.”

Request. Hannibal was attempting to make this a mutual decision. This was a taste of the bargain Will was striking with the devil and Will felt himself salivating at the prospect of coming toe to toe with such a damning deal. He was signing his soul away. He knew that, but he couldn’t find it in himself to feel abashed. He had come this far. He had abandoned everything for this. What kind of man would he be if he backed away now? “Alright, but you’ll tell me where the nearest town is and let me go there if I want to.”

“I don’t see why that cannot be arranged.” There was an edge of discomfort to Hannibal that Will wouldn’t have noticed had he not been staring at the man for the past half hour.

“Are you sure you want to stay here, Hannibal?”

Hannibal’s eyes flickered around them. To Will’s face, out the window, to scan the room. “You are not the only man who must eventually overcome his demons. It stands to reason that I should not ask you to do something that I cannot ask of myself.”

“That’s surprisingly self-aware of you.”

“I prefer the past to be left where it is. I focus my attentions on the present.”

Will hummed. “You can’t deny that the past influences the present. Without it, the present wouldn’t exist.”

A nod. “Although my past was not something I consciously desired to revisit, I am not entirely opposed. It did not create me, but it did influence the sequence of events that made up my life and led me to this point. Only a fool would disavow the relevance of this.”

“As long as your demons don’t hunt me in the halls in the middle of the night.” Will wanted to laugh at the image of monsters peeling from the wallpaper. Maybe he really was drunk.

“My demons are long since slain, I assure you,” Hannibal responded. His voice was a gentle wash in the room. “Only their ghosts remain.”

Will made a sound into his glass, finishing off the rest of his wine. “Who you gonna call?” he muttered.

Hannibal didn’t see fit to reply to that.

The silence stretched and Will wondered if that was the end of it, but his own mind got the better of him and he found syllables passing his lips before he could stop them. “I think I always knew about you, subconsciously.” He tipped his gaze up to see Hannibal looking at him. He promptly turned away again. “Before I legitimately _knew_ , I mean. Back when I thought you were my psychiatrist.”

“I was your psychiatrist.”

Will laughed sarcastically and acted like Hannibal hadn’t even spoken. “I remember being unduly cautious around you. I felt like I was walking on hot coals.” He saw Hannibal’s head tilt in his peripherals.

“And yet you did not step away.”

“Maybe I doubted my instinct.”

Hannibal made a sound that sounded almost like disagreement. “Your instinct is something that has always been rather infallible.”

Will lightly tapped his glass and watched it wobble. Half of him wanted it to fall off the table and break. It didn’t. “First off, that’s a crock. My intuition might have a few extra strings attached, but I’ve been wrong. I’ve been wrong plenty of times.”

“One could argue that the only times you have been wrong is when you disregarded that intuition,” Hannibal countered blithely.

“Yeah. Maybe.” Will sucked his lower lip into his mouth. There was a question niggling at the back of his mind. “If I felt like I was walking on coals in regards to you, what was the reflection of that?”

“Are you asking what I intuited in regards to you?” Hannibal had clasped his hands at his crossed knee. His position was every bit the man he had been sitting in his office, across from Will as they discussed his work with the FBI, his dedication to Jack’s misuse of him, his nightmares. The comparison seemed out of place. That man had never been a reality. It served no purpose to see him that way any longer.

Distracted by his own nostalgia, Will simply nodded.

Hannibal respected the question enough to give it some thought, looking up as though remembering the moment they met. “I suppose that for me, interacting with you was akin to being lost in a forest in the pitch of night.” He let his words ease slowly into the air—let them percolate. “The sound of nature, silence, and vast emptiness cocooned by noise.”

“It sounds contradictory.”

“It does.”

“So I felt the need to run forward to keep from being burned, whereas you felt compelled to stand still in the silence?”

“And the noise,” Hannibal amended gently. “But yes. It has been some time since I have stood still, Will. I appreciated the reprieve.”

Will felt a ridiculous flutter of flattery in his chest and snapped it like a twig before he started preening. He had the sudden and violent urge to slap his wine glass off the table just to watch it shatter and break the moment. Instead, he rose from the chair on legs made unsteady by alcohol and pills and overly revealing conversation. “I think it’s time for me to sleep.”

Hannibal had the sense to recognize when Will needed to be left alone, for once. He nodded and rose from the table himself, collecting their glasses. “You may choose whichever room you like, though the one you were in is one of the few I have had the opportunity to properly clean.”

“It’s fine.” Will didn’t know why he bothered to placate the other man, but it came out involuntarily. He almost opened his mouth to say goodnight or tell him that he would see him in the morning. He thought better of it. It would be too strange for such pleasantries at this juncture. It wasn’t the time. He didn’t know if it would ever be the time. Rather than continuing to flounder in his own indecisive mess, he waved his hands in some indecipherable way and left the room without another word.

As he wandered up the staircase and in the general direction of what he thought might be his room, Hannibal’s words echoed somewhere in the hollow places inside of him. According to Hannibal, Will had been a respite from the chaos. He had been an opportunity to stand still.

Will couldn’t bite back the laugh this time. The irony was too potent—too preposterous. If he had been Hannibal’s calm in the storm, Hannibal had been the complete opposite for him. Hannibal was the beast chasing him in the darkness. He was the shadow creeping from his closet. He was the creature nipping at his heels from deep within the ocean.

In short, Hannibal was the thing that had shocked Will back into movement. Hannibal had found a man who was content to stand in his empty, barren forest of a mind and thrown him onto the coals. Into the fire. He had given Will a reason to cast off his complacency like a dirty suit.

It made Will wonder if they were really that different. If maybe, just maybe, seeing the mirror throw Hannibal’s face back at him in his darkest moments was more than just an illusion offered by sleep deprivation and stress. They were not the same. They were opposites, but in their opposition they somehow made a counterweight for each other.

It made their relationship sound a lot healthier than it was. It made their relationship sound like a relationship. Will wasn’t a fool. He knew better than to look at what was between him and Hannibal through such a conventional lens. If he made the mistake of doing that, he might never recover, if recover was what he truly wanted to do.

Eventually, Will found his room again. It was just as he left it, bedcovers thrown aside in confusion and panic, empty water bottle cast aside, and his jacket slumped forlornly on the stiff chair in the corner. Will grunted when he noticed a paper bag sitting atop the bureau to the side of the room. Cautiously, he snatched the bag and rolled open the top.

“Fuck me.” Will chuckled. It wasn’t an entirely humorous sound. “Jesus.”

Inside the bag was clothing; recently purchased. Hannibal had bought him clothes. He had bought him _underwear_. For some reason, that was the first time the entire day Will felt genuinely like his boundaries had been overstepped. A normal person would be hung up on the fact that he had been drugged for four days and tucked in faux-captivity away from the world in some dilapidated manor, but Will? No, Will found the most discomfiting fact of the day to be that Hannibal had seen fit to start clothing him like a pet.

He really needed to get his priorities in order.

Shoving aside pride in favor of sleep, Will dumped the bag out on top of the dresser in a heap and plucked some clothes from the pile. They seemed like they were fit to sleep in, but who knew with Hannibal. Everything the man bought was expensive and quality. For all Will knew, this shirt was some sort of hundred dollar casual summer top of some kind. To Will, it looked like a really soft tee shirt. He decided to go with utility over price point, tossing off his clothes and prodding the bandage at his shoulder before slipping the tee over his head.

He wondered if he should change the bandage himself or ask Hannibal to do it. Logic dictated that the trained physician of the two of them should be appointed the task, but pridefulness was still crawling up Will’s spine and he deduced that logic could wait until tomorrow. Right now, he just wanted to succumb to the effects of good wine and better pain pills and just get some damn sleep.

With that in mind, Will lowered himself gingerly onto the bed and let the shadows of the Lecter estate swallow him whole.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Mind, body, and soul. That was what they called devotion, wasn’t it?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I managed to edit part 2 before I take off for work. In the nick of time! 
> 
> Enjoy!

He awoke to the smell of food. Good food. The kind of smell he hadn’t smelled since before. Before everything.

Sitting up and blinking away the confusing remnants of sleep, Will rubbed his eyes. Last night, for the first time since he could remember, he hadn’t had a single dream. It felt like the night had disappeared behind him and never even happened. For a discombobulating instant, Will wondered if he had slept at all. Nightmares had been his way to determine the passage of time—prove he’d ever been asleep at all. But the light shining through the window from the morning sun was proof enough and so was the open door inviting in the welcoming smell of—

Wait, why was the door open?

There was no way Will had left that open before he’d gone to sleep. The house was creepy enough as it was without inviting the nightly specters of Hannibal’s questionable past to visit his bedside. Frowning, Will went over to the bureau and rifled through Hannibal’s overpriced and unwelcome clothing bundle until he found a pair of slacks. Slacks and a tee shirt probably weren’t the best morning wear, but Will wasn’t about to stand in front of the mirror for twenty minutes trying to look pretty. If Hannibal had a problem with how he was dressed, he could tell Will where the store was and let him go buy his own damn clothing.

It took fifteen minutes, haunted by the olfactory temptation steaming up from downstairs, before Will found the bathroom and washed himself up. He wasn’t surprised when he found it had been stocked with toiletries and cleaned until it was pristine. He wondered vaguely if Hannibal had gone through and stocked every bathroom in the house in case Will chose that one to wander into.

Will rolled his eyes and brushed his teeth, deciding he had no desire to know what Hannibal had been doing in his spare time. As amusing as it was to imagine the man with yellow rubber gloves running around and frantically cleaning everything in the massive building they had currently trapped themselves in, Will had better things to think about.

Like why the hell his bedroom door had been open.

Convinced he was at least passable and feeling a bit less grimy than he had before, Will made his way into the kitchen and found just what he expected to find. Hannibal was at the stove, shuffling something in a pan and fiddling around with spices. Whatever he was cooking smelled tantalizing and for a moment Will just enjoyed the ambiance of the morning. Hannibal looked ever in his element, surrounded by food and focused on the task at hand. If it wasn’t for Hannibal’s favorite ingredient, Will would have allowed the consideration that maybe Hannibal should have become a chef.

A disquieting comparison to a shop on Fleet Street knocked that idea right out of Will’s head and messily to the floor. He grimaced and shifted uncomfortably as though stepping away from the idea.

“Good morning, Will.”

Will sighed and walked over to the counter. After all this time, he was used to Hannibal’s eerie awareness of his presence. “Why was my bedroom door open?”

Hannibal paused and glanced over his shoulder. He took in Will’s mismatched clothing and pressed his lips together in veiled distaste. “I thought perhaps the room would get stuffy if you locked yourself away. It has not been properly cleaned.” He turned away as he spoke, busying himself again with breakfast.

Will blinked, realization tickling at his senses. “Wait.” He shook his head, torn between laughing and being disturbed. “You wafted!”

“I’m not sure I follow you, Will.” Hannibal was politely ignoring him, spooning eggs onto a serving dish.

“You _wafted,_ ” Will repeated. “You opened my door and lured me out with the smell of food. Were you standing at the bottom of the stairs with a plate and a fan?” The image made his eyes water with humor.

Hannibal fixed him with a blank stare, unimpressed. “I assure you that I did no such thing, Will.” He did not, however, offer any more insight than that.

Deciding this was an argument he didn’t want to start, Will just smiled and shook his head again, taking a place at the breakfast nook and nodding in thanks when Hannibal handed him his plate. He waited until Hannibal had seated himself before he started plucking at another thread in the tapestry. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to unravel it entirely or just change the pattern. “So.” He picked up a lean link of sausage and eyed it. “Are we eating anyone in particular?” He didn’t even wait for Hannibal to respond, plopping the link into his mouth without a care. He knew he was being immature, but it seemed his mind was stuck on reactionary responses. He wanted to get a rise out of Hannibal and now that he had started, he couldn’t seem to stop.

Hannibal watched Will chew, face impassive and impossible to discern. Slowly, he picked up his fork and began to eat his own meal. “Do you intend to behave this way for the entirety of our stay?” The question was asked casually, but a sharp edge of irritation made its way into the layers. Will could practically hear the grinding teeth.

“I don’t know. I’m acting on impulse, to be honest with you.”

Hannibal hummed in acknowledgment and took a moment to pour them both some coffee. “You’re trying to find your footing. You are unsure how to approach this situation.”

Even though he didn’t like being called out so easily, Will knew better than to lie about it. Hannibal was right, after all. “Yeah, I’d say that’s fair. Part of me wants to keep poking at you just to see what would happen.” He ignored the twitch of a brow that comment earned him. “Another part of me wants to scream at you until I’m out of breath.” He took a bite of eggs and savored the taste. Hannibal’s cooking was as exquisite as ever. “Yet another part wants to do the opposite of whatever you expect of me or want of me, just so I can prove I’m able to do so.”

“These parts all seem rather antagonistic,” Hannibal observed mildly, sipping at his coffee.

Will shrugged. “Not all of them. There’s a bit that wants to hide away in my room and never leave it, or run away and never look back, or just give in and see the world you were so intent on showing me. For every part of myself I recognize, I find five more that have other intentions.”

“It sounds like you are at war within yourself.”

“It does sound like that.” Will ate another bit of sausage and wondered genuinely for the first time what kind of meat it was—wondered if he really wanted to know.

Hannibal answered the question before he had to ask. “It’s pork.”

Satisfied, Will nodded and kept eating. “I wouldn’t call it a war, though. I’ve already decided to stay. Now I’m just deciding in what capacity.”

“Is there any way I can assist you in your decision?”

Will narrowed his eyes and set his fork down on his plate. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t be _assisting_ me.”

“I agreed I would not cajole,” Hannibal corrected him placidly. He tilted his head in thought. “I assume that does not imply I must cease discussion with you entirely?”

“I—no.” Will chewed at his lip. “No, I don’t want to stop talking.”

“Good, then we have already determined one thing that you want.” Hannibal seemed pleased and proceeded to continue on with his meal.

Despite Hannibal’s air of accomplishment, Will felt like they hadn’t solved anything. He said as much. “That was already decided.”

“Do you expect to dash forward leaps and bounds within minutes?” Hannibal asked. “By lunch you will have decided completely and utterly the purpose of this venture? How expeditious your mind must be.”

“There’s no reason to be so condescending,” Will grumbled.

“Forgive me, Will.” Hannibal gave a slight nod of apology. “But you cannot truly expect to understand all facets of your perception of these events so immediately. For a lack of a better word, this circumstance is an entirely unfamiliar one. It is natural to be uncertain of how you wish to proceed.”

“And what about you?” Will speared one of the sausages a little too aggressively. “I assume you’ve got your angle all figured out?”

“Not in the slightest.”

The bluntness of the admission threw Will for a loop. He stared resolutely at his food, unsure of what to say.

With a laden sigh, Hannibal pushed his plate away and sat back, nursing his coffee. “This territory is as unfamiliar to me as it is to you. I believe it’s safe to say that I am learning it alongside you.”

The idea of them being on such common ground was disconcerting for Will. He was so used to Hannibal walking a different path entirely—in a different universe and reality. Hannibal lived on a spectrum entirely separate from his own, away from the laws of the universe. To say that now they were on even terms? It was a concept Will found difficult to grasp. “And what if we come to different conclusions?”

“I suppose that is the question, isn’t it?” Hannibal didn’t seem worried by the thought at all.

They finished their meals in silence, each tucked away in the recesses of their minds. It was only when Hannibal was cleaning up their mess and repeatedly shooing Will away from helping that Will finally spoke up.

“Tell me how to get to town. I want to buy my own clothes.”

Hannibal was drying his hands on a dishcloth and didn’t turn when Will spoke. A heavy silence hung in the air like smog.

When the seconds began to tick too long, Will tried again. “Hannibal, I already told you I’m not going to leave. This was part of our agreement.”

Hannibal continued about his business, deliberating as he put away the last of the dishes on the drying rack and neatly folded the cloth in his hands. After a torturous drag of time, he finally turned around and leaned back against the countertop. His eyes swept up and down Will’s form, taking in the wrinkled shirt and slacks. “Perhaps it would benefit you to choose your own clothing if it would make you feel more comfortable here.”

Will crossed his arms over his chest. He hoped he looked as defensive as he felt. “It would.”

A blink and Hannibal was smoothing out the front of his shirt as though the mere sight of Will’s disarray had sullied his own garb. “I will need to give you some money before you go.”

With a grimace, Will waved his hands in refusal. “Hannibal, I don’t want you to pay for my clothing.”

Hannibal simply lifted a brow. Sometimes Will envied the levels of patience the man possessed. “Do you intend to use your credit cards, Will? And what is the likelihood that Uncle Jack will jump at the first indication of activity from your finances?”

 “Well maybe if you hadn’t whisked me off without allowing me to get my things.” Will rubbed at his face and groaned.

“Had I thought you would come willingly, I would have been happy to make the detour.” Unapologetic.

“And that’s why we made _that_ part of the deal,” Will snapped. “Every time you call all of the shots, I lose things. Like clothes.”

And people.

Hannibal frowned. “I don’t recall another occasion where I have cost you your clothing.”

Will’s face flushed against his best efforts, turning crimson. “Listen, that’s not what I’m—that’s not the point.”

Tired of the back and forth, Hannibal pushed away from the counter and started out of the room. “I will leave some funds and directions to town on the table in the entryway. Do with it what you like.” He stopped, briefly, to glance back at the younger man. “I suppose it would be fruitless for me to request that perhaps you avoid bringing back an excess of plaid.”

Will glared and Hannibal left the room.

After another twenty minutes of poking at his own bandages and deciding how foolish it would be to try and change them himself, Will gave up when he realized that there were no bandages anywhere to be found. The bathroom had no better than aspirin and bandaids. It looked like Hannibal had deliberately made it so that Will would have to go to him to check his wounds. As controlling as the action was, Will knew deep down that it would be the wiser choice. For all his shortcomings, Hannibal was still medically qualified. What he used those qualifications for was a bit less than healing more often than not, but Will had witnessed those hands displaying their skills on both sides of the coin.

Will frowned as he donned his jacket and shuffled around to go, remembering the first time he had truly suspected Hannibal was something more than he let on. It had been that day in the back of an ambulance. Hannibal’s hands had been chest-deep in a man. They were the only thing keeping him alive.

Will had stared into his eyes as he held life at his fingertips and seen nothing but blackness.

It was captivating.

He didn’t meet Hannibal as he went to leave the house. Half of him expected Hannibal to swoop around the nearest corner and announce he was joining Will on the excursion, but no such swooping happened. Will had to hand it to him. It seemed like he was taking their deal seriously. For now, anyway.

He found a crisp stack of bills on the table by the front door alongside a neatly handwritten note in elegant curves and loops. Will snorted and plucked up the note. He would never get over how fantastically ridiculous Hannibal’s handwriting was. It was beautiful and overdone and completely pointless. The man probably wrote grocery lists like they were torn out of Shakespeare.

The note was nothing more than directions into town, but a small jot added almost as an afterthought at the bottom caught his eye.

_Take the keys. They are to my car. No need to be frugal with the money, as we have more than enough to maintain ourselves._

Will made a noise of surprise and grabbed the keys from the table, examining them. What car? Shrugging, he shouldered open the front door and shivered as a blast of cold air hit his face. It wasn’t winter—not quite—but the end of the year was making itself known. Luckily all of his years in Wolf Trap had given him a decent insulation against the cold. Steeling himself, Will stepped out and glanced around.

Oh, _that_ car. Not twenty feet away was a sleek, black Lexus. Will couldn’t remember hearing Hannibal drive up, but he supposed he had been fairly withdrawn when the other man had arrived the day before. He pulled the keys out of his pocket and pressed the button on the fob. The car chirped a welcoming beep and Will slid into the luxurious leather seats. When he started it up, it purred like a kitten.

“I wonder if this is a rental,” he muttered. Will wasn’t entirely sure just how rich Hannibal actually was. He had his suspicions, of course, that it was some disgustingly exorbitant amount, but it wasn’t as though he had ever asked Hannibal his net worth. Whatever the answer would be, Will expected it would be along the lines of what all of those in the category of filthy rich would say. _Enough that we won’t have to worry about anything_ or _it’s not a concern._

Although Will had never been one to place too much value on money, the idea that he could always have it when he needed it was not an unpleasant one. Beyond stability, which he’d had once upon a time with his teaching spot at the Bureau, but _solidarity._ The ability to stand on your own in whichever way you see fit, nothing but the limits of the world itself to contain you.

Peeking over the directions one last time, Will pulled through the gate and watched as the estate became smaller and smaller in his rear view mirror. The fact that Hannibal had let him make use of the car was surprising. For all either of them knew, Will was about to drive off into the distance and not think twice about it. Well, maybe twice, but definitely not three times.

Will shook his head to clear the thoughts out of it and flipped on the radio. A static-flushed voice began rambling away in a language he didn’t recognize and thus began Will’s routine of surfing through endless channels of static and gibberish as he drove to town. It was the most normal he had felt in days and he soaked it in like photosynthesis. It wasn’t long before the town was peeking out over the horizon, all stone and wood buildings that looked like they should have caved in on themselves years ago.

Will heaved a sigh of relief when he realized that the town became modernized further in—repaired and updated. When he found what looked like a department store a few blocks in, he pulled to a stop and froze, realizing the one thing he hadn’t considered.

He didn’t speak Lithuanian.

“Fuck.” Will scrubbed his hands over his face and slumped in the driver’s seat. “It’s fine. It’s not a big deal.” He continued to mutter to himself as he switched off the ignition and double-checked his pockets for the cash Hannibal had given him. It didn’t matter if he could talk to anyone or not. Everything would have price tags. He just needed to walk in, hand over the right number of bills, and walk out. Besides, didn’t most countries speak English as a second language by now? He was bound to find someone who understood him if it came down to it.

“Besides, I’m shacking up with a cannibalistic serial killer right now. A language barrier when I buy socks is the least of my worries.” Will hastily got out of the car when he realized that all he was doing now was sitting there talking to himself like a crazy person.

It turned out his concerns were unwarranted. He made it in and out of the first shop without a hitch, a few bags heavier and a few bills lighter. After that, he wandered the town for a bit, not quite ready to go back to Hannibal just yet. He found an ice cream parlor where some cute kid gave him a doughnut and complimented his “wild hair” in broken English. He wandered into a bookstore and ended up leaving after he discovered that he kept noticing books Hannibal would want and almost buying them. He made a snap detour into a shop just to buy the plaid shirt his eye had caught through the window, like somehow flipping the bird at Hannibal’s snooty request would erase the fact that Will had damn near been tempted to buy the man a present twenty minutes ago.

Before he knew it, the sun was beginning its descent in the sky and he knew the names of three different townsfolk—the third one was either a name or a drunken declaration of love—and he still hadn’t managed to spend all the money Hannibal had given him. Either this town was dirt cheap or the currency exchange Will had tried to figure in his head was grossly inaccurate. With a sigh, he decided to head back to the house.

A few people who had spoken better English than the others had asked Will where he was staying. He had known better than to say he was staying at the Lecter Estate. He’d been in enough small towns to understand rumor and history. The last thing he and Hannibal needed were nosy neighbors trying to rubber neck their way past the gates and find out who was staying in the long-since abandoned manor. So, Will had told them the acceptably vague “I’m staying with a friend” and most of them had politely left it at that.

The drive back dragged on longer than the reverse, seeming to stretch for miles. Will wasn’t sure if it was impatience to be done with the day or a subconscious need to be out in the real world for just a little longer, but eventually the estate rose up over the trees and Will listened to the crunch of gravel under the tires. His eyebrows rose when he spotted a shadowy figure hunched over on a bench near the courtyard fountain. At first he thought it was Chiyoh, but the shoulders were broad and arms long. When he pulled to a stop, he narrowed his eyes. It was Hannibal.

Will slowly got out of the car. Hannibal was far enough away that he couldn’t make him out clearly. After a long, pregnant moment of debating with himself, Will approached the man just like he had the day he found him in the museum. He could feel the two moments in time opening up rifts and sliding over top of each other like opaque slides. As he sat down next to Hannibal, the moments morphed into one living, malleable thing and Will could see them both clearly. He was in the past and the present. Only this time he had no knife and it wouldn’t end in Chiyoh shooting him.

He _hoped_ it wouldn’t end in Chiyoh shooting him.

They both breathed, taking in the beautifully crumbling fountain and absorbing the dimming light of the day. Just like the day of the museum, Hannibal spoke first.

“Did you find what you needed in town?”

Will’s jaw twitched and an unrecognizable feeling jittered into his subconscious. “Yes.”

“Good.”

Small talk was never their strong suit. Neither of them had ever really attempted it before. Even in the beginning, their conversations had always been riddled with implication and ulterior motive. To talk just to talk? To ask a simple question? It was abnormal in its normality and neither of them seemed to know what to do with it.

“Why are you out here?” Will inquired eventually. His gaze didn’t leave the fountain, but he saw Hannibal glance at him from the corner of his eye.

“In part, I was curious to see when you would return,” Hannibal responded levelly. He seemed to be weighing his words; deciding the value of them. “In majority, I used to sit here as a child and watch the water trickle across the stone. It has long since broken, sadly, but I can conjure the images within my mind palace as though I am here again and witnessing the simple splendor of it.”

Will looked around, worrying his lip with his teeth. “This place was beautiful once, wasn’t it?” Asking Hannibal about the past seemed like treading thin ice. It was crossing a boundary he hadn’t been invited to cross.

If the same thought occurred to Hannibal, he gave no indication. “It was. It still is, in its own way. I find the decay of glory to be ineffable.”

“There is still beauty here,” Will agreed with a nod. He let his eyes wander to the overgrown hedges, the flowering vines, and the chipped and shambled statues. This was a place lost in time. He was about to say something more, but Hannibal beat him to it.

“You told me that Chiyoh killed her guest.”

Startled out of his reverie, Will turned to Hannibal to face him full on. The man’s countenance was a mask. He was inscrutable. “She did.”

A flicker of light danced across the red of Hannibal’s irises. “You have not told me the whole story, Will.”

Suddenly, Will understood, and that realization was accompanied by a resounding and thorough feeling of disappointment. “You’ve been down there. You saw him.”

“I have.”

Will’s mouth felt dry. He licked his lips. “When?” That disappointment was still there. It was eating away at his guts. Hannibal had seen it.  He had seen the tableau Will had left in his wake. He had seen the first true representation of Will’s design. And Will hadn’t been there to see his face, to hear his gasp, to witness his reaction.

Will felt cheated.

“Our first night here.”

The answer sank into Will’s chest like a cold stone. Hannibal had seen it days ago. He had said nothing. Will hadn’t known. Why did he feel so denied? He felt as though he had been deprived of something pivotal. When he opened his mouth, he was horrified to find that his voice shook. “And what did you think?” His eyes fell to the stones beneath their feet. He didn’t want to think about whether or not he was asking for approval or appreciation. He didn’t want to see the second-hand reactions.

Hannibal’s voice was a low rumble when it replied. “Was that you, Will?”

Will nodded jerkily and rubbed at his thighs. He grimaced at his own visceral reactions and felt like crawling out of his own skin. “I encouraged a situation where Chiyoh would finally be able to make the decision to free herself from this place.” He didn’t look at Hannibal as he spoke. He couldn’t. “And once she did, I felt that it was not enough. She had told me who he was and what he meant to you. To Mischa.”

There was a sharp intake of breath and Will chanced a glance to his left. Hannibal was staring off into the distance, fingers clenched subtly against his knee.

Will sighed and looked away again. “I couldn’t leave him as he was. It wouldn’t have been right. He was something awful and horrible. He was a part of your past and even if the things your past created have been horrific and great and terrible, they’ve also been…” He bit his lips again and wondered if he was really going to say this—if he was really far gone enough to admit the thought he’d had for so many years. “Artistic, beautiful, grandiose. It seemed to me that it was only fair I elevate him to the same standard. I never expected you to see it—“

Will's words stumbled out of his mouth into a haphazard stammer when he felt warm fingers propping under his chin to turn his head. Hannibal gently moved him with the barest whisper of a touch until their eyes met. What Will saw in the eyes that stared back at him was not blackness or hollow, but the same enamored glow of recognition that he had seen in times past. When he had held the gun to a bloody Clark Ingram in the barn. When he had presented Randall Tier on Hannibal’s dining room table like an offering. When Hannibal had run him through in his kitchen and held him close.

“If for no other reason,” Hannibal murmured, his voice barely audible over the sound of blood in Will’s ears. He brushed a thumb over Will’s chin, so slightly it might not have happened, and the situation became unbearably intimate. “I am glad to have returned to this place solely to see the creation you left for me in the shadows.” His fingers tightened on Will’s chin. “It was a splendid glimpse into the depth of your mind.”

And with that, Hannibal’s hand was gone and he was looking away again.

Will let out a breath that had been caught deep within the tense clench of his chest. His heartbeat was hammering against his ribs and at the back of his skull. He shut his eyes and breathed slowly, trying to regain some of his stability. “Like I said, I never thought you would see it.”

“Would you have told me about it?”

Will frowned and debated the question with himself. “I don’t think I would have.”

“What a selfish boy you are.” But Hannibal sounded more amused than offended. “Keeping such things for yourself.”

Will chuckled. “Maybe I knew you would find it even if I tried to keep it from you.”

“In that case, it seems I am far more predictable than I intended to be.”

Will turned and realized that they were both smiling at each other. The moment was so light and surreal that his smile immediately fell off of his face as it struck him how odd this truly was. “I can anticipate you, Hannibal, but I’ve never been able to predict you.”

The smile slowly faded from Hannibal’s eyes and he contemplated Will’s statement. “When either of us is able to fully predict the other, I fear that will signify the end of our waltz.”

Will wanted to be hurt by the statement, but he couldn’t argue with the validity of it. “Do you really think so?”

“I have thought so in the past. I have learned that when it comes to you, I best not feign precognition.” Hannibal stood and gestured for Will to join him. “But if there will ever be a time that I can prognosticate the results of your every action, I cannot see it. Such a concept has become one of the rare impossibilities of my reality.”

Will made a sound in the back of his throat and looked over at the car. “Help me carry my bags in?”

“Of course.” Hannibal set upon the car before Will even had a chance to register the agreement, ever the gentleman as he hauled all but two of the bags out of the car himself and began carrying them into the house.

Will stood by the car for the longest time, watching Hannibal disappear into the front door and wondering why he felt so pleased and if that pleasure should worry him. In the end, Will snatched up the two bags that were left, grimaced at his shoulder as the flare of the ache began to knock his nerves, and made his way inside. He needed to reload on painkillers. There would be time to worry about his thoughts later.

There would always be time for that.

Hannibal was in the process of setting Will’s bags in his room when Will walked in. “I see you managed to find plaid,” he observed, peering into one of the bags with undisguised distaste. “I will never understand why you insist on wearing it so often.”

Will shrugged and tossed his other bags carelessly next to the ones Hannibal had neatly sat on the floor. “It looks alright on me and it’s comfortable.”

“A pattern cannot be comfortable.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong.” Will picked the plaid shirt out of the bag and held it up to his chest. “Admit it, if I never had anything plaid, you wouldn’t recognize me.”

There was a faint twitch at Hannibal’s lips that could have easily been either a smile or a grimace. “I suppose that is true. Have you changed your bandages?”

Will frowned and dropped the shirt back into the bag. “I’m pretty sure you know the answer to that question. There aren’t any first aid kits in the bathrooms.”

Hannibal bowed his head. “Apologies. I left it in the kitchen.”

Will’s frown deepened. “I hadn’t thought to look there.”

“You could have simply asked.”

Will was plenty aware of that fact and just as aware that his refusal to do so was idiotic. “It would probably be best if you did it anyway.”

Hannibal looked legitimately surprised and Will wondered if his assumption that the other man had planned this was off base. “You will trust me to do so?”

“Well there won’t be any needles involved, will there?” Will was still testing the waters; seeing if Hannibal would rebuke. Every time he made a jab he half expected a knife in his throat. It was getting increasingly and perplexingly frustrating that the knife didn’t seem to be coming.

“I believe we are past that stage.” Hannibal let the double-meaning of the sentence seep into the walls of the room. Past the stage of lies? Past the stage of manipulation? What stage were they past—were they moving into? “I took some time today to tidy up the sitting and dining rooms. The sitting room is directly across from the kitchen. Wait for me there and I will gather the supplies to tend to your shoulder.” Hannibal didn’t wait for Will to agree or disagree, sweeping out of the room in three long strides.

Will stood uselessly in the center of the room for a succession of lost moments in time, wondering how the hell he had gotten to this point. He was staying in Hannibal’s childhood home, surrounded by a dark past that Hannibal seemed content not to acknowledge, and he was being increasingly catty and rude to the one man who had killed for such behavior with seemingly no repercussions in sight. He would say that the situation couldn’t possibly get any stranger, but knowing who he was trapped in this limbo with, that didn’t seem like a wise jinx to cause.

Eventually, he stepped out of his own mind and followed those steps out of the room and into the sitting room Hannibal had told him about before. He paused, startled, when he saw Hannibal was already sitting in an armchair, first aid kit in hand. How long had he been standing in his room staring at nothing?

“I was beginning to wonder if you had changed your mind.”

Will blinked stupidly. “I—uh.” He didn’t want to apologize. Apologizing to Hannibal didn’t feel right, so he settled for something a bit more evasive. “I lost track of myself there for a minute. I didn’t mean to take so long.” He kept his eyes resolutely on the bookshelves to the left, idly wondering how musty they  were and if any of them were in English.

“Come.” Hannibal pat the cushion of the couch next to him. “Sit.”

Will bit back the temptation to say he wasn’t a dog and moved to where the other man had indicated, taking a seat and shifting awkwardly. After a brief hesitation, he pulled off his shirt and tossed it aside. He poked at his bandages, grimacing at how stale and rough they felt against his tender flesh. “I probably should have asked you to do this sooner.”

“I was endeavoring not to ask you,” Hannibal said smoothly, opening the box of supplies and setting it aside on the table. “I admit that may have been an error on my part. I was attempting to give you the space you requested, but I should have considered your avoidance would not be healthy for your wound.”

Suddenly, Will felt like a chastised child. He felt foolish. “I didn’t consider it either. I should have asked you sooner.”

Their eyes met and lingered before Hannibal moved from his seat to kneel in front of the younger man, small scissors in hand. He kept his movements slow and measured, but Will still jumped a bit at the change of position.

“Woah! What?”

If Hannibal was a man to roll his eyes, he would have. As it was, all he did was raise a brow. “I cannot properly reach your shoulder from the chair. Please, sit still and allow me to remove the bandage.” He lifted the scissors by way of explanation and eyed Will’s shoulder pointedly. “May I?”

Will forced the churning feeling in his gut to subside and the crawl of unease to stop its way down his spine. Hannibal wasn’t going to go through all of this just to stab him with a pair of scissors. Most likely. “Yes,” he relented, digging his fingers into the couch cushions and staring at the wall rather than the man unceremoniously kneeling in front of him. It wasn’t an image he wanted to look at too closely. Hannibal was not a submissive man. He was a predator—a dominant force of will—and his position in the moment did nothing to change that. Will cursed himself for feeling intimidated by someone who was kneeling before him like a supplicant and restrained a wince when Hannibal began to carefully snip away at the layers of the bandage.

Hannibal was mindful of his task; focused as only one practiced in the field could be. He efficiently cut away the remains of the wrappings and set them aside on the table, reaching for a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a cotton swab. His fingers clasped around Will’s bicep to hold him still and he dabbed at the sides of the bullet hole.

Will hissed as he heard the bubbling of the peroxide and was torn between looking at it and feeling grounded by Hannibal’s hand on his arm. In the end, he looked down at the wound. It looked worse than it was. It was red and irritated and rough. The hole where the bullet had been was puckered in at the edges just so and he knew it would leave a nasty scar. “Should it be doing that?”

Hannibal hummed a sound of question, continuing about his business of cleaning Will’s shoulder.

Will barely registered the feeling of fingers soothingly stroking over his arm, but he did notice it in the back of his mind where he hid the thoughts he didn’t like thinking about. There was no reason for Hannibal to be doing that. Hannibal was not a comforter. Any attempts the man made at sympathy were always a game, so the hand on his arm made no sense as Will could find no game here—no ploy. “I mean, should it be… sizzling? If it’s healing?”

He knew he was rambling, but he needed a distraction. Hannibal was too close. There was too much contact. Will’s mind was buzzing and so he talked to dull the roar.

“You are healing,” Hannibal confirmed. He placed the stained swabs next to the bandages and leaned forward even closer to inspect the wound, massaging the muscle around his shoulder blade to determine the pliancy. “But you still have a ways to go. Peroxide bubbles whenever it comes into contact with living cells. It is normal. I cauterized the wound, so there will be no further blood, but there will be draining and that is why there are no stitches. It will be weeks before the skin begins to truly close up and heal, months for the muscles.”

Hannibal was spreading some antiseptic around the wound with nothing but his fingertips and Will shivered in spite of himself. The dull ache of his shoulder and the steady press of Hannibal’s touches were causing his neurons to fire in all different directions. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it. “Shouldn’t…” he paused and swallowed. “Shouldn’t I be in a sling?”

If Hannibal noticed Will’s state of disarray, he didn’t acknowledge it. “Normally, yes, but the bullet fractured no bone and you seem to be performing admirably on your own. You shouldn’t lift your arm too high or use it intensively for a few months, which I’m sure you’ve noticed just by reactionary pain alone. We need to change your bandages more often so the draining of your wound does not lead to infection. This is by no means an ideal treatment by any standards, but I’ve done what I can.” Then, he did something completely strange. He leaned forward and blew on the antiseptic as if to dry it and the whole room seemed to stand still.

Will’s breath hitched and he looked down, eyes meeting Hannibal’s gaze instantly. The older man seemed stunned himself, like he hadn’t intended to do what he had. Their faces were close—uncomfortably close, Will realized—and Hannibal’s fingers were digging into his arm now. It was only then that he noticed the palm on his stomach, resting firmly there for balance with splayed fingers and a steady pressure. Will’s eyes left Hannibal’s to seek out the hand, disbelieving.

It was over his scar.

Hannibal’s eyes followed his, fingers twitching as though he had just recognized where they were. He didn’t move his hand. Slowly, his thumb dragged along the corner of the scar.

Will felt like he had been punched in the gut. Hannibal’s hand was heavy and warm and that one graze across his scar felt like the knife was there all over again. He couldn’t find it in himself to pull away. All he could do was stare. He wasn’t sure if he was breathing. “It’s the first time you’ve seen that, isn’t it?” He licked his chapped lips and watched in an awed confusion as Hannibal’s thumb swept over the line again like he was mapping it to his memory.

Hannibal’s hand was shifting over Will’s skin in millimeters as he adjusted to look at the scar more closely. Still, he didn’t pull away. “It is. A part of me foolishly assumed the wound would close entirely without a trace.”

“You didn’t look when you cleaned me up before?” Will had a hard time believing that.

“I felt I had no right to,” Hannibal said quietly, enthralled by the skin under his fingers, the rough bump of the line he continued to trace with the pad of his thumb. The situation was unbearably intimate. It held such heavy connotations that both of them were moving like they were in molasses in case time shattered into pieces like a broken window. “I gave this to you. It’s yours now.”

“Is that your way of saying you’re ashamed of it?” Will was biting his lower lip hard as he continued to let Hannibal fondle his stomach like it was a completely normal thing to do. “Or are you trying to pass off gutting me as giving me a gift?”

“I do not partake of shame, Will. It is a useless emotion that serves no purpose.”

“It must be nice to be able to choose what to feel.”

Hannibal’s hand paused and the pressure increased. He was practically holding Will to the couch now. He looked up. “I do not choose what I feel. I do, however, choose whether or not to feel it.”

Will licked his lips again and stared into the depth of Hannibal’s eyes; let the blackness swallow him for a moment. He narrowed his eyes and searched Hannibal’s expression, trying to glean what he meant. He wouldn’t ask what he wanted to. He wouldn’t ask what Hannibal chose to feel in regards to him. The question would be ungraceful and inelegant. Instead, he asked something else. “So you’ve seen your scar now. What does it make you feel?”

Hannibal’s face went from unfathomable to intrigued in an instant. “ _My_ scar?” His lips turned to a thin line and his fingers flexed into Will’s abdomen. There was intent there now. The hand could no longer be called accidental. It couldn’t be shrugged off. Will could practically feel the claws in his belly, extending out from the beast in the man before him. Possessive. “I feel a great many things, Will.”

Will’s pulse was thrumming in his ears. To his horror, he was getting hard. He wanted to pull away and hide from his own reaction, but he was trapped with cushions at his back and the imposing form of Hannibal Lecter at his front. He could have stopped this easily. He knew that. This was a waltz they hadn’t stepped to before. This was new, and somehow he was sure that if he stopped asking questions, if he stopped matching Hannibal step for step, the other man would drop this in an instant and pretend it never happened. Instead, he asked another question. “And what—“ Hannibal’s fingers flexed again and Will’s voice caught in his throat. He swallowed and tried again. “What do you _choose_ to feel out of all those things?”

Will didn’t realize he had given some sort of permission until he watched the expanding of Hannibal’s pupils with startling clarity, the parting of lips, the sliding of Hannibal’s hand up his stomach and over his chest until suddenly he was pinned by his good shoulder to the couch. Without preamble, Hannibal’s head ducked down and he licked a searing strip across Will’s scar.

Will gasped, jerked violently and felt his shoulder screaming in protest, but Hannibal’s hand held him fast to the cushions.

Hannibal’s other hand was on his thigh now and at first Will couldn’t understand why he was pressing down so hard. He was gripping Will’s leg with a terrifying strength, holding fast, and it took Will a shamefully long time to understand it was because he was thrusting his hips up—arching his back. It was all involuntary and Will didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or punch Hannibal in the face and run. But Hannibal’s mouth was still on his stomach, sucking a mark at the leftmost part of the smile, and Will was shaking.

When Will looked down to see the top of Hannibal’s head, a sound left him that he would deny until his dying day. His mind was in shock. It couldn’t keep up with his body.

With one last vicious suck and drag of teeth, Hannibal pulled away, leaving a red mark in his wake. In the silence that was permeated only by the sound of their breathing, he looked up. His lips were red and shining and eyes black as coal. He looked like a lion finishing the last scraps of a feast. His hand slid up Will’s thigh until his thumb was pressing into the groove of Will’s hip through his pants and then smoothly sat back.

“Allow your shoulder to breathe for the evening. I will rewrap it before you sleep.” Hannibal spoke in a voice unerringly calm and steady and Will hated him for it. With that, Hannibal stood and gathered up the supplies, walking out of the room.

Will remained slumped on the couch for an indeterminate amount of time, feeling Hannibal’s saliva cooling on his skin and trying to wrap his mind around the fact that the other man had just essentially made-out with his stomach and then sauntered on out as if it was just another day in the life of Hannibal. Maybe it was. Hannibal was always rather unperturbed in general. There was no reason why this should be any different.

But the feral look in the older man’s eyes was burned into Will’s retinas. His hair had been mussed, lips swollen, cheeks flushed. For all intents and purposes, he had looked like he had just been—

No. Will shook his head to clear it and sat up, grabbing his shirt and thinking twice about tugging it back on. It wasn’t exactly clean and he had an uncovered bullet wound. It was probably best to do just what Hannibal told him to and let it breathe, but now every time he looked down he would see the goddamned _hickey_ that Hannibal had given him as confidently as he had given the keys to his car earlier.

Will wondered if he should be angry or panicked. There was no way around how the event had caused him to react. There was only such denial a man could have when he was still so hard he was walking funny. Was it an unexpected turn of events? Maybe. Will wasn’t sure anymore. Maybe he had seen this—or something like it—coming for longer than he would care to think about. Had he expected things to happen the way they did? Not really.

Not that he had been expecting anything to happen at all. He just… wasn’t surprised.

Groaning, Will rubbed his hand over his face and stood from the couch, dirty shirt hanging from his hand. After a moment of deliberation, he decided he needed a shower. He paused halfway up the stairs and frowned. Turning back around, he ducked his head into the kitchen where Hannibal was currently preparing their dinner. “Um. Hannibal?”

“Yes, Will?” Hannibal’s voice was the epitome of calm camaraderie when he responded, continuing to dice up vegetables and not even bothering to turn around. Will wanted to throw his shirt at him.

But what else was Hannibal supposed to do? Will didn’t want to _talk_ about what had just happened and he certainly didn’t want to—

There went his thoughts again. Veering off path. Will shut his eyes and took a steadying breath. “I wanted to go take a shower but I wasn’t sure if I could with…” He gestured lamely to his shoulder.

Hannibal, still turned away, gathered the meaning of the pause. “Try to keep your shoulder out from under the spray and don’t use soap on the wound. If it gets a little wet, it’s not the end of the world. Dry it gently and allow me to reapply some antiseptic when you’re finished.” And back he was to cutting up a pepper, not a care in the world.

Will grunted what might have been an “okay” or a “thanks” or some form of a language that someone might speak somewhere, and wandered back out of the room.

The shower was easier than he expected it to be, as was letting Hannibal put the antiseptic back on his shoulder. The man had been completely professional the second time around, quickly smearing the gel over his wound, easily bandaging him up, and inviting him to the dining room for dinner.

Will felt an odd tug at that. Not disappointment, no, but there was an anticipation in his gut now that he couldn’t quite get to abate. What had happened in the sitting room had opened up an entirely different door of the realm they both shared. Just as Hannibal had added rooms to his mind palace for Will, Will had created twists and turns to his river that were solely reserved for Hannibal. Whether it was by conscious choice or not didn’t matter. They were inexplicably entwined and now there was a new brook to the stream and a new hall to the palace and although Will wasn’t sure if he wanted to know where they would lead, he was definitely curious.

“Normally, I wouldn’t appreciate a guest being shirtless at my dinner table, but considering the circumstances, I’ll allow it,” Hannibal said teasingly as he left to get the food.

“How generous of you,” Will quipped half-heartedly back at him. He was still lost in his thoughts. There was a hickey on his stomach. The night was a strange one.

He wasn’t entertaining the notion of romance. Far from it. To Will, this wasn’t a romantic venture. He and Hannibal wouldn’t live happily ever after. Not in so many words. He weighed the concept around his head just so he could convince himself he had given it proper consideration. Even as Hannibal began to place sweet-smelling dishes on the table, Will thought about it.

What he felt for Hannibal wasn’t romance. Neither, he knew, was it antagonistic. For all the battles they waged with one another, they were not enemies. It had taken Will a long time to realize that. In fact, he hadn’t actually figured that out until he was sitting next to Hannibal in the museum, staring at art and realizing there was nowhere else he would rather be.

_I’ve never known myself as well as I know myself when I’m with him._

No, this wasn’t a romance. It wasn’t a battle of good and evil. It wasn’t wrongdoing versus justice. It wasn’t even friendship. All of those concepts were far too simplistic—too plain.

Will watched the man quietly as he sat down to his right, their seating just as it had been so many times at Hannibal’s home back in Baltimore. Hannibal sent him a small, reserved smile and began serving Will his food.

It was none of those things. It was all of them combined. It was beyond requiring definition.

And so Will stopped attempting to define it and decided to eat his food instead.

Hannibal raised an expectant eyebrow.

Will smiled and it was the first genuine smile he had given Hannibal in a long, long time. The weight wasn’t gone from his shoulders, but it was transforming into something more bearable. “It’s good.”

Hannibal’s expression shifted a bit, discerning and calculating as he took Will’s smile in. For a moment, he continued to eat his food in silence until Will felt all but scrutinized by the penetrating gaze being directed his way. Finally, Hannibal seemed to catch himself in the act and he looked away. “Forgive me, Will.”

“Did I say something wrong?”

With a small shake of his head and an aborted gesture in the negative, Hannibal sighed. “No. Quite to the contrary.”

Will’s brows furrowed and he poked at the food on his plate. “Okay. Good.”

“Have you considered what professions you might enjoy?” Hannibal changed the subject smoothly—albeit suddenly—pouring more wine for both of them.

Will started at the question. “Why would I be thinking about that?”

“I assume you don’t intend to go back to the FBI. Not that you weren’t adept in your position,” Hannibal responded offhandedly. “It seems to me like you may be headed for a change.”

“I’m sure that thought gratifies you.” Will took a hefty bite of his dinner. Everything Hannibal cooked was delicious. It wasn’t fair. “You never liked that I worked for them.”

“That’s not quite true,” Hannibal said. He took a sip of his wine and watched it swirl in the glass. “I didn’t enjoy how Jack abused your gifts until you were wrung out and destroyed.”

“You’d prefer to be the only one who destroys me.” Will didn’t ask because it wasn’t a question.

Hannibal’s dark eyes darted up to meet Will’s own. “I would.”

Will swallowed at that, trying to ignore how small the room had just become. He shrugged it off and chuckled. “Well I guess you got your wish. I’m not going back to the FBI.” He set his fork down to sit back and focus on his wine for a while. He needed it. “But what else? I don’t know, to be honest. I’ve always loved fishing, but being a fisherman would take the joy out of it. I could repair things, maybe. I’m not short on money. I’m not, well,” he gave Hannibal a look. “I’m not you, but I’m not struggling to make ends meet.”

“Now seems as good a time as any to consider your new path.” Hannibal raised his glass in toast. “To your future, Will.”

Will didn’t return the toast, deciding finishing off the entirety of the drink was a better option. “I wasn’t sure I had one. I thought maybe I lost it.”

Unperturbed by Will’s refusal, Hannibal continued to nurse his own wine. “Lost it?”

Will grimaced and tapped his fingers on his empty glass. Telling Hannibal this might not be a good idea, but they had agreed to be honest and, for better or worse, that’s what Will intended to do. “After you left,” he paused and let that hang in the air for a time, choosing his words. “Jack came to see me once I was healed.” It was now or never. He had no way to hope if Hannibal took this the right or wrong way. Will didn’t know which way was the _right_ way to take it. “I told him that I had wanted to run away with you.”

The darkness that overtook Hannibal’s features was instantaneous. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. “Why, then?”

“Why didn’t I?” Will pushed the glass away and looked over at Hannibal. “I told you. It was all on your terms. They were terms I couldn’t accept.” He frowned, his expression one of deep thought. “When you promise to share a future with someone, you have to let them share that future. How to get there and how to stay there. You didn’t want to share, Hannibal. You just wanted to take me like a prize.”

Hannibal’s mouth opened, about to argue, but he closed it again just as quickly. He finished his own wine and schooled his face. “It hadn’t been my intention.”

“I know.”

Surprised, Hannibal regarded Will blankly for a moment. In the times that Will had caught him totally and completely off-guard, Hannibal’s face would become devoid of expression; no repertoire of ready-made and practiced countenances at hand. This was one of those times.

Will sighed. “I know that’s not how you meant it, but that doesn’t mean that’s not what it was. But…” He ran a hand through his messy hair and shivered as his lack of a shirt began to get the better of him. “I wasn’t refusing _you._ I was refusing your terms.”

Hannibal’s face was completely impassive. He blinked, food forgotten. “I see.”

Will laughed. “Do you? Because even I’m not sure what I’m saying.”

At this, Hannibal’s features softened slightly. “I had never thought of it in this light, Will. Thank you.”

Will flushed and looked away. “I’m just being honest.”

“Thank you.”

“Stop thanking me.”

“Very well. Do you want more wine?”

Jumping at the chance to drink this conversation away, Will nodded vigorously. “God, yes.”

Hannibal poured both of their glasses so full it was damn near gluttonous and Will couldn’t have been more grateful for it. They both retreated into themselves for the longest time after that, lost in their own thoughts—perhaps coming to the edge of an understanding they had been attempting to breach since the start of their misadventure.

They were on the precipice of something and it placed a lead weight of anxiety and anticipation in Will’s gut. He leaned his elbows on the table, forgoing propriety, and sighed for the umpteenth time.

“Is this what our schedule will be?” he asked softly. “Chat, eat, chat, eat, drink ourselves into a coma to escape all the chatting. Lather, rinse, repeat?”

Hannibal sent him a curious look. “You make it sound futile.”

Will shook his head and thumbed the stem of his glass. “No, I just…” He trailed off and shook his head again, beginning to feel like a bobble-head doll. “Actually, I have no idea what I’m trying to say. I’m just talking to hear something.”

Hannibal mulled this over for a moment, finishing his wine and gently setting the glass aside. “You’re not asking what the plan is because you know there isn’t one.” He ran a thumb over his lower lip in thought and crossed his legs to angle himself towards Will. “I assume, then, that this is your attempt to decide what to do next.” A small smile. “Or avoid acknowledging what took place earlier this evening.”

Wil’s face heated and he winced.

“Or were you trying to prompt me into instigating a discussion about it?”

Hannibal was calling him out and Will was sorely tempted to storm out of the room like a child. He didn’t want to talk about this—about the intense exchange in the sitting room. He didn’t want to talk about Hannibal’s mouth on his skin.

Only he _did_ want to talk about it because he couldn’t stop replaying it over and over in his mind. It was so entirely outside of the scope of everything that had occurred between them before. It was so utterly _other_ that Will was certain they must talk about it lest he go mad from overanalyzing the situation.

Will analyzed himself a hell of a lot for someone who hated being analyzed. The irony wasn’t lost on him.

Steeling himself for what was going to be an unbearably uncomfortable conversation, Will gulped down the rest of his drink and turned to look at Hannibal. It took the realization that the room waited a few seconds to follow his vision for Will to understand he might have had a bit on the side of too much. He blinked through it belligerently. “It was unexpected,” he said, finally.

Hannibal made a sound that was likely one of amusement. “Was it?”

“Don’t do that.” Will frowned. “This isn’t a tennis match.”

“It was…” Hannibal tilted his head in acquiescence. “Impulsive.”

Will waved the offering of explanation away like a mosquito. “You are impulsive down to your core. As planned and meticulous as you are, you are ultimately whim laced with precision. Of course it was impulsive.”

Then, Hannibal did something so completely unexpected that Will felt his heart damn near stop.

He _laughed_.

It was a sound of such genuine pleasure and amusement that Will’s hairs stood on end and his blood slowed to a crawl just so every ounce of his concentration could witness it.

“Oh, Will.” Hannibal shook his head and slowly his smile faded back into something more placid. “Your skill in perception is absolutely tantalizing.” His eyes shot to the younger man’s suddenly and there was something sharp and intent cutting like glass behind the humor.

Will felt pinned; a butterfly to a board. He said nothing.

Hannibal’s gaze didn’t waver. If anything, it only became more intense. He leaned forward so subtly that it could barely be called a movement at all. “Impulsive, yes, but not unexpected. I have been eager to taste your for some time.”

Will’s mouth was dry and he swallowed roughly to counteract it. “I know. You’ve admitted as much, but I never thought that was the way you meant it.”

The smile was gone from Hannibal’s face, replaced by something looming—a mystery and a promise wrapped together. His eyes appeared crimson and Will was entranced by it.

“There are many ways to taste, Will,” Hannibal murmured, eyes moving down to Will’s bare stomach and stroking over the mark he had left before returning to his face. “I see no difference.”

Will huffed at that. “No difference between eating someone’s flesh or—“ He grit his teeth together, refusing to keep going.

This time, Hannibal’s smile was predatory. “Not to me, no.”

“That’s not very promising.” Will’s voice was shaky and he hated himself for it. Would there ever be a moment where Hannibal didn’t force him to feel things so intensely? There was no halfway between them. It was always all or nothing. It was exhausting. And yet, it was a drug. Will felt like an addict, quivering for his next fix so that he wouldn’t have to come down from his high.

Hannibal made him feel the kind of alive you could only get from the fear of imminence and danger—the expectation that you were about to be attacked from the blackness or careen off the nearest cliff.

Hannibal’s eyes narrowed and he leaned back a bit, giving Will room to breathe despite the fact that he truly hadn’t been that close at all. “What kind of promise are you looking for?” His fingertips were idly tracing the wood of the table as he regarded Will coolly. The beast was still lingering at his edges, but he was reigning it in; reeling the line back slowly. “A promise that I won’t partake of your flesh at all?”

Will shut his eyes and pressed his lips together.

“Or,” Hannibal continued so gently that his voice seemed to hover in the air. “A promise that I will only partake of it in ways you would prefer?”

The implication slid down Will’s throat like hot iron, making him feel as though he had swallowed fire. It spread through his veins and made his palms sweat. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter. He couldn’t distinguish between the facets of his own reaction. Was it dread or intrigue? Was the thudding of his heart a drum of disgust or desire? He couldn’t tell. He was dizzy.

“I should—“ He swallowed and licked his lips, trying again. “I should sleep.” He still hadn’t opened his eyes.

Hannibal was silent for a moment and Will feared he wouldn’t let him sidestep the conversation this time.

Eventually, the older man made a noise of assent and Will could hear him standing and gathering their dishes. He couldn’t decide whether or not he was regretful or grateful for the out. Either way, he was going to take it.

Without so much as a look back or an offer to help clean up, Will practically scrambled out of the room and up the stairs, not stopping his blind stampede until he was safe in his room with a heavy door to barricade him from an interaction he wasn’t ready to have.

Although he’d never admit it out loud, he felt embarrassed by his own behavior. Was it really so difficult to talk about this? They were grown men. They were adults. There was no reason for Will to run off like an inexperienced child. Yet here he was, heart hammering and back against the door like he was escaping the boogeyman.

This was no excuse to be having an identity crisis. He’d already had that when he was fantasizing about slitting Jack Crawford’s throat and running away with the Chesapeake Ripper.

His connection with Hannibal had surpassed petty existential crises and moral dilemmas. To pin this on a doubt of sexuality seemed categorically trite given the intimacies they had already shared. So what was he running from?

Heaving a sigh, Will pushed off the door and made his way to the bed, gingerly laying back and letting the ache of his shoulder numb his thoughts back into an imitation of order. For the longest time, he stared at the cracks in the ceiling, memorized the chipping paint and fading woodwork, and catalogued the distinct dents and divots that only time and history could bring.

He wasn’t running from anything. He wasn’t scared. Hannibal had cut the fear out of his belly like he was removing his appendix. He had no doubt the man found both equally useless.

As unconventional as the surgery had been, Will was changed for it. He’d bled out his anxieties onto the kitchen floor along with whatever remained of his complacency. When he’d been stitched back up and sent on his way, he had set out not to combat his miseries, but seek a conclusion to them.

Or perhaps more accurately by Hannibal’s assessment, a continuation.

Regardless of his newfound bravado with traipsing into the unknown without so much as a plan or legitimate intention, Will knew well and good that whichever way he decided to turn was going to have a resounding impact on his life. No matter what happened, when they left this place—this house—things would never be the same again. The world would be changed. For better or for worse, there would be no turning back, no semblance of normalcy, and no changing his mind.

There was a finality in this house that was inescapable. Whatever he decided to do here would put an end to whatever they had started and make room for whatever was supposed to happen next.

Whatever happened here was a commitment—one way or another.

It was only right that Will found himself hesitating. He was standing in a hall of doors, knowing that whichever one he stepped through would lead to the room in which he stayed. The other doors would stay locked tight. If he chose the wrong one, there was nothing he could do. The door would snap shut behind him and he would be claustrophobically crowded by his miscalculation.

That was why Will was lying where he was now, locked away in his room and avoiding making that choice. He wasn’t like Hannibal. He couldn’t just remake himself over and over again and keep on like it was no small thing. He wasn’t indestructible like that. The teacup could only be glued back together so many times before it shattered for good.

If Will let himself break again, he knew he wouldn’t come back together. Not this time.

If he gave into this curiosity and crossed this line with Hannibal, that would be it. There was no reversing that kind of decision. Hannibal wasn’t a one night stand he could give a fake number to and make the walk of shame back to his house. It would change the dynamic of everything they were.

It would make them permanent.

Perhaps in any other situation Will would accuse himself of romanticizing the situation; placing too much value or importance on a physical technicality. But no, bridging this particular gap with Hannibal would not be professing some undying confession. It would an unequivocal acceptance.

Mind, body, and soul. That was what they called devotion, wasn’t it?

Will knew beyond all reason and sanity and practicality that he had accepted Hannibal’s mind. After all, it was damn near impossible not to when Hannibal had been the only one to accept Will’s own damaged psyche.

And soul? For whatever the concept actually meant. Will had seen Hannibal’s demon, his monster, his darkness, and he had walked straight towards it without blinking or shrinking away. He was here, wasn’t he? So yes, he had accepted that too.

Body, though.

Will pulled his lower lip between his teeth and bit down.

That was all that remained, wasn’t it? They’d come together in every other way; chaotically so. It was a sensible next step if there was to be any sort of progression.

Will had considered the prospect that there was more to it than that. Hannibal had rejoiced in his destruction of Randall Tier. He had glowed at the prospect of consuming the flesh of Freddie Lounds.

He didn’t just want a companion. He wanted a partner. He wanted someone to share in his violent delights and violent ends.

If Will made this commitment—the commitment they had been skirting around since the moment Will had decided to stay at the estate—he was all but promising his complicity.

Will had always prided himself in being a seeker of justice. A protector. But Hannibal would see him become more. A creator.

Shutting his eyes, he welcomed the anamnesis of all the hideous and dark moments of the minds he had ventured into throughout his life. He felt the sickness tearing into his belly as he recalled the black tar of thoughts not his own, sliding against his skull in an unwelcome intrusion. He thought of the curious spark of pleasure he’d felt in seeing Hannibal’s pride at having Tier on his table. He thought of the venomous self-hatred he had experienced upon realizing he wanted Hannibal’s regard, respect, and recognition. He sunk into the memory of turning Chiyoh’s captive into _his_ design—the clarity and accomplishment he had felt in that moment.

He thought of Abigail. How he had failed her. How he had always known he would fail her. How he had not felt horror as her blood trickled down his face and thickly through his fingers, but a helpless and deep acceptance that it was for the best. That, despite everything, he should never have tried to keep her in his world. Not when his world was so acutely made of Hannibal; a fact that he now knew would never change.

Hannibal was a layer atop his skin, a taste on his tongue, a whisper at the back of his mind. He had seeped into his pores and filtered into his blood and Will could kill him or run from him or lock himself away, but they would always be conjoined in a way that no one else could be a part of and survive. They had _seen_ one another. There was no reversing that.

Will let his palm slide over the cool fabric of his sheets.

There had been a time when he would have denied until his dying breath that he had the capacity for murder. He would have screamed until he was hoarse that any manifestations of darkness within himself were solely creations of Hannibal’s manipulations.

But that was cowardice. He had to take responsibility for who he was. He was no puppet and no fool. He had seen Hannibal’s intentions. He had seen them plain as day and he had let it continue. If anything, he had encouraged it by attempting manipulations of his own. He had played the game, willingly and consciously, and he had deformed and distorted himself. He had been cognizant of this decision. He had been an active participant.

He wasn’t the victim in this macabre play. This wasn’t a manifestation of Stockholm syndrome. Will had looked madness in the eye and chomped at the bit to get at it, match it, counter it with his own.

No, he was no innocent.

Part of him thought he should be sad at the admittance. Some far away logic urged him to despair at the loss of humanity he was experiencing. He was dissociating and he knew it, but he couldn’t find it in himself to feel the loss of it. He didn’t feel hollowed out. If anything, he felt renewed.

There was a tremor of fear. It was the fear of a man knowing he was stepping off the boundaries of norms and what was deemed acceptable and “right”. He was allowing himself to be culpable. He was allowing himself not to care.

Maybe Hannibal had changed him more than he wanted to admit.

But the question was, had he changed Hannibal in return?

Will couldn’t help it. He chuckled to himself in the impending darkness of the room.  That was one of the most redundant questions he had ever asked himself.

Because of Will, Hannibal had shed his person suit and abandoned his life in a blaze. Because of Will, Hannibal had exposed himself to the world. Because of Will, Hannibal was now back in his childhood home, which he had never intended to return to. Because of Will, Hannibal had promised to alter his behavior for another person, had offered honesty, had attempted compromise. All things the man had likely never even considered with any seriousness in all his life.

Of course Will had changed him. He had changed him irrevocably.

And that had to come with some sort of responsibility on Will’s part, didn’t it? He had done this on purpose. He had gone at Hannibal with everything he had and tried to mold him just as much as Hannibal had tried to pull Will’s own strings.

Hannibal may have tugged the lever to what happened, but Will had done the very same. Will had done this _to_ Hannibal. This was a give and take.

Hell if it wasn’t as fucked up as something could possibly be, but Will couldn’t just walk away. This entire situation was his fault too. There was reciprocity in these betrayals and actions and consequences.

For the first time since all of this had started, Will considered the possibility that Hannibal might want answers too. That maybe, just maybe, Hannibal was as ridiculously lost as he was. That there was a distinct possibility that Hannibal wasn’t only his anchor, but he was Hannibal’s.

Will chuckled again, dry and morbid. “Fuck.”

The realization knocked the wind from him and deflated whatever remaining stamina he had. Slowly, he sank into a fitful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if you're liking this so far, yeah? Since there's no real action and it's more relationship-focused, I've been dubious about whether or not this would be enjoyed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"I often forget I’m not the only romantic in the room.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Part 3! Your comments have been so wonderful, guys. Truly, they've maybe me feel significantly more confident about how this story is being received. I love hearing what you have to say, even if it's a simple line telling me you're enjoying this, so thank you.
> 
> So, part 3. Our boys will finally start to get some action now, I suspect. And by action I mean the naughty kind, naturally, as no random assassins or angry stray cows will be charging into the estate out of the blue.
> 
> Not that the stray cow thing wouldn't be entertaining. I shouldn't give myself ideas...

The next four days passed much without incident.

Will would wake up, wash up, meet with Hannibal for breakfast, allow the man to check his wounds, and they would both wander off into their respective activities for the day. When evening rolled around, they would eat together once more and then drink into the night, talking about anything and everything important but nothing regarding them or their reasons for staying at the estate.

Hannibal seemed content to let Will take the next step. His demeanor was resolutely impassive and he didn’t so much as breathe a word about their previous conversations concerning their unusual progression. He was content to converse endlessly about philosophy, history, and art and listen dutifully as Will spoke of his past, of people, and of all the things he had wanted to experience in life. Their conversations never dulled and never wavered, but never traipsed into the territory of the unfamiliar—the unexplored.

Will quickly realized that Hannibal was leaving it to him. This time, he didn’t jump at the chance. Instead, he let it marinate and steep, resolving that he would get to it eventually.

Hannibal had taken to cleaning with impressive relish during the day, moving from room to room until each one had been stripped of filth and decay. One by one, Will watched as Hannibal scrubbed the layer of dust from his past. He wondered if the ritual was therapeutic. He wondered if such a thing _could_ be therapeutic for a man like Hannibal.

Will, in turn, had made a habit of wandering and exploring.

On the first day, he ventured into the depths of the manor. Room after room, door after door, Will delved into the memories of the place. He ran his fingers over the spines of books and weather-worn upholstery of furniture that hadn’t been used in years. He pictured a young Mischa playing with her toys on the floor of what appeared to be a dilapidated nursery. He watched the ghost of a thin and untarnished Hannibal curl up in an armchair that was now crumbled in on itself, reading a book. He listened to the echoes of the voices of children whisper from the halls and up the staircases and wondered to himself if this place had once been bright. If Hannibal had ever spent a day smiling, playing games with his sister, looking into his future with the hopes and aspirations of any other child.

On the second day, Will spent the entire time in the attic, rifling unashamedly through boxes and crates and chests full of mysteries. He didn’t ask permission and Hannibal never sought him out to chastise him for the intrusion. He sorted through yellowed and faded pictures, stared into the dark eyes of a boy, the bright smile of a girl, and the aristocratic poise of their parents. He looked at faces he didn’t know and never would. He examined a broken telescope, a burned doll, and a snapped bow, envisioning what stories the items could possibly hold.

He would never know the history of these things or how they had come to lay discarded in the attic instead of cast into the trash, but he looked at them regardless and imagined that he could feel some kind of story in them; vibrating against his fingers with all the knowledge they held.

He didn’t mention anything he found to Hannibal. He kept them for himself.

On the third day, Will felt cabin fever creeping up his spine and escaped to the grounds. He followed the phantom of Hannibal as he wandered through the hedge maze, now overgrown and impenetrable in places. He stumbled over rocks and weeds until he found himself surrounded by trees with skeletal limbs and thick moss. He kept going until he found a clearing and a lake so large he was forced to squint to see the edges clearly in any direction. There was a shack that was in a shambles with wood so old it crumbled to the touch, but Will ventured into it anyway. There wasn’t much in the way of useful things. An old, rusted shovel, a crate of smooth stones likely used to lay paths, and a rickety workbench that was about as useful as the shovel.

Despite the uselessness of it all, it gave Will an idea. He took a deep breath of the air, smelling the water of the lake and feeling comforted by it as he stared up into the white of the sky.

And so, on the fourth day, he asked Hannibal for some money and the car keys and the other man handed over the items without so much as an eyebrow raised in question, tossing in a polite request for Will to bring some turmeric back with him if he happened across any in the shops he went to.

When Will went into town for the second time in their stay, he didn’t feel the same shift of consciousness that he had the first time. Before, he had experienced a distinctive tilt in reality as he left Hannibal behind, like stepping from one world to the next. This time things weren’t so disjointed. He could still feel Hannibal at his back, not so far away, and he contemplated the gravity of the change in perception.

Either he was beginning to lose his grip on reality and was sinking further and further into Hannibal’s world with each passing day.

Or, and this felt more likely to him, he was letting something go. He was “shrugging off the shackles” as Hannibal would say.

Or maybe he was just experiencing some particularly frightful cognitive dissonance and he was up shit creek without a paddle.

Deciding he couldn’t and didn’t want to care which option suited him best, Will did what he set out to do, buying the things he needed and skirting around as many curious questions from the locals as he could. It was easy to avoid prying eyes and ears when he didn’t speak the language and had years of practice exuding a level of antisocial rancor that would dissuade even the most exuberant extrovert.

These benefits were a double-edged sword, though, when it came to trying to explain to the shop owner what it was he needed. It took him much longer than it should have to get everything he had come for and even longer to turn down the salesman’s offer for him to buy more. He got the feeling these people didn’t often get Americans traipsing randomly into their shops and laying down wads of cash.

Eventually, he escaped the eager repetitions of “This? You get this too?” and shoved his purchases into the Lexus. He didn’t know how Hannibal would take his idea. Frankly, he didn’t care. He’d convince Hannibal to agree one way or another. Will had set his mind to it and damned if he was going to let go of this nugget of individuality he had managed to cling to. This was what he wanted to do and so he was going to do it.

They had to get out of the rut they had found themselves in. The blatant avoidance and superfluous routine were beginning to get to him. Something had to give.

He spent the second half of his day lugging all of the things he had gotten to the crumbling shed by the lake and dropping them unceremoniously onto the work bench. With a grim determination and no small amount of stubbornness, he trekked back to the house and made his way into the kitchen.

Hannibal was currently by the stove, stirring something into a pot with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his hair falling loosely around his face. For a moment, Will just stood there and watched him. There was something comforting about watching Hannibal in the kitchen. He was so in his element. Every movement was precise yet calm. Everything he did was fluid and exact and relaxed all at the same time. It made Will feel safe to watch him like this. It was a paradoxical feeling considering that half the time Hannibal was cooking there was a sinister undertone to all of it, but Will had spent the past week arguing himself away from defining his own feelings in concepts of right and wrong. He felt safe watching Hannibal here. It didn’t matter if it was right. He felt it.

“You were gone a terribly long time.”

Will blinked as Hannibal’s voice jerked him out of his musings. Shaking his head, he walked further into the kitchen and set the keys and bottle of turmeric on the counter. “Yep. I brought this.”

Hannibal reached for a cloth and wiped his hands as he turned around, eyes settling on the bottle. His lips tilted into a soft smile. “Wonderful. Thank you, Will.”

Will shifted over to sit on a stool and lean on the countertop. “Is it for dinner?” He nodded over at the pot on the stove, trying to guess what it was by smell.

“Yes.” Hannibal moved to pluck the bottle from the counter and inspect the label. “This will do nicely.”

“What if I hadn’t gotten it?”

Hannibal didn’t look bothered by the idea. “Then I suppose I would have substituted another one of the spices I already have.”

Will frowned. “You had no intention of doing that. You made this with the belief that I would get it for you.”

Hannibal’s frown matched Will’s own. “Not everything I do is a test, Will. I must confess that I’m unsure as to why this is a sticking point for you.”

Will rubbed his hand over his face and sighed. “Sorry. It’s not. My shoulder is really starting to get to me and I’m on edge.”

Apparently satisfied with the explanation for Will’s belligerence, Hannibal took a bottle of water from the fridge and sorted through a drawer for one of the endless bottles of painkillers he seemed to have stored absolutely everywhere. Will took the offerings without comment and tossed a couple of the pills back.

“How much longer is my shoulder going to feel like it got ripped off and glued back on?”

“Quite some time, I’m afraid,” Hannibal replied placidly as he returned back to the stove. “Especially considering how active you have been. Most patients with this sort of wound tend to be bedridden for a period of time. You’ve been content to be rather mobile the entire time we have been here.”

Will grunted. “If I stayed in bed all day at this place I would go insane. I’d feel like I was in hospice.”

A chuckle. “I can echo that sentiment.”

Will licked his lips and let his eyes rove over Hannibal’s back, weighing his next words. “Has cleaning it been helping you at all?”

The only indication that the topic was a tender one was the brief moment in which Hannibal’s shoulder twitched and paused. He recovered quickly. “You see my cleaning habits as an attempt at catharsis.”

“I see your cleaning _ritual_ as a form of abreaction,” Will corrected, taking another swig of his water. “Yes.”

“My past traumas did not make me, Will.” Hannibal’s voice held the tense undertone of warning. His shoulders were beginning to stiffen again.

Strangely and beyond all reason, Will felt compelled. So, for once, he followed the compulsion. Standing up from the stool, he made his way over to Hannibal and stopped mere inches behind him. There was still a barrier there, holding him back from touching or feeling, but he soaked in the way the heat from Hannibal’s body stretched across the small space between them. He let out a soft exhalation of breath and Hannibal tensed even further.

Shocked that he had caught the other man off guard, Will stared at the back of his head. “Listen.” He swallowed when Hannibal stopped moving completely, as though he feared breathing would stop the words from leaving Will’s mouth. “I know your past didn’t make you. You don’t have to make this argument. You don’t need to defend yourself with me.”

“On the contrary.” Hannibal’s voice was so low that Will struggled to hear it despite being no more than a foot away from him. “You are the only person I must defend myself to.”

“I was under the impression that you didn’t think there was anything to defend.”

Slowly, Hannibal turned around on the spot. The space between them seemed so much smaller than it had moments before now that their eyes had met and the only thing separating them was air. Will had to consciously fight the urge to step back. Hannibal’s dark eyes searched his face for a moment before he finally responded. The depth of his voice made something unquantifiable crawl across Will’s skin and settle at his nape.

“I appreciate the attempt to comfort me, Will. In truth, I am surprised by it, but it’s not necessary.”

Will rolled his eyes and let out a dry laugh. “You’re human. A different kind of human, sure. But all human beings need to be comforted sometimes.”

Hannibal’s eyes narrowed. “And you feel it’s your responsibility to offer it to me?”

Will took a deep breath. He could smell the spice of Hannibal’s skin and the steam of whatever was boiling on the stove. “You offered it to me.”

“Not successfully, from what I recall.”

Will frowned at that, disturbed by Hannibal’s attempt to admit a level of failure. “That’s not true.”

Hannibal’s lips parted slightly. He seemed to be holding words at bay. Will could see the controlled silence in every muscle of his face.

“What is it?” Will tilted his head to the side. “Hesitation doesn’t suit you.”

“I’m simply attempting to keep my promises to you, Will.”

“You promised not to coerce me. Unless what you want to say falls under that category—“ Will cut himself off and shrugged. “We aren’t going to get anywhere if you don’t say what you want to say.”

“I want to know if you’ll let me kiss you.”

Will froze. He blinked a few times, trying to process what he had just heard. His eyes jolted to Hannibal’s lips, his shoulder, the wall, and his lips again. “I—what?”

Hannibal raised a fine eyebrow and leaned into the handle of the stove. Will had the urge to tell him not to burn himself. “Come now, Will. The admittance can’t possibly be so startling.”

Will shut his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, no. It’s not. Still—“

“Was it not you who complained about our compulsion to equivocate?” Hannibal asked. “You expressed a desire to cease vacillating between metaphor and implication, did you not?”

Will’s shoulders sagged and he met Hannibal’s gaze. “That doesn’t mean the change doesn’t take me off guard, but you’re enjoying that, I’m sure.”

Hannibal’s silence was all the confirmation Will needed on that account.

Will reached a hand between them and let it hover in the air. It was such an intimidating thing to consider something so simple as casual contact with Hannibal. They had touched so many times and yet it had never been without purpose. To touch one another as most people touched? The concept was foreign to Will—not unwelcome, but difficult to digest.

“What wall are you struggling to climb, Will?” Hannibal questioned patiently. “What boundary do you struggle to breach?”

Will felt as though the rumble of Hannibal’s voice was reaching his fingertips in the air, making his skin tingle. He flexed his hand and in doing so glanced the edge of one of the other man’s buttons. “Most people pass the simple stages early, don’t they? Small talk, a touch here and there, the simple things. But you and I bypassed that completely.”

Hannibal took a deep breath and the movement of his chest brushed the fabric of his shirt over Will’s fingertips. “You are forever trapping yourself in the nodus tollens of your mind. Perhaps you don’t need to understand everything about yourself, Will. Your need for explanation is as much a trap as the questions that inspire the need.”

Will smiled. “And here I thought you were trying to be blunt and avoid sounding nebulous.”

“Lay your hand down.”

“What—“

“Lay your hand down before it remains hovering in their air forever,” Hannibal interrupted, nodding down to indicate the offending limb. “There is your bluntness. Either lay your hand on my chest or let it fall.”

“Some ultimatum,” Will mumbled. Then, after a beat, he let his hand fall forward onto Hannibal’s chest.

The effect was instantaneous. A long breath of air escaped Will’s lungs in a whoosh and his thumb stroked idly over the fabric. He could feel Hannibal’s heart beating against his palm; warm, alive, and real. He didn’t know what he had expected, but now that he was here with his hand where it was and nothing profound or catastrophic happening, he knew he was being ridiculous.

“Should I repeat my question?”

This time Will definitely felt the vibration of Hannibal’s voice as it travelled through his palm and up his forearm. “What question?”

Hannibal waited until Will looked up at him. “Would you allow me to kiss you?”

Will let the question sink in for a moment, sliding his hand up to Hannibal’s collarbone and back down to the center of his chest. He could feel his every breath like a hypnotic lull. “Right now? No.”

Hannibal hummed and Will closed his eyes at the feeling. “And later? Will you let me then?”

Deciding to let his mouth speak before his mind could catch up, Will dropped his hand back to his side. “I have a feeling if I keep saying no I’m going to make a liar out of myself.” He changed the subject before Hannibal had the opportunity to reply, stepping back to signal the conversation was over. “Isn’t the food going to burn?”

Recovering in a way only a man like him could, Hannibal shook his head and turned back towards the meal. “I turned down the burner. Everything is exactly as it should be.”

Will stared at the man in front of him for a long, drawn-out moment. “It probably is, yeah.”

Hannibal said nothing and so Will made a job of setting the table and milling about uselessly. They didn’t revisit the conversation that night.

It wasn’t until the next morning that Will brought up his trip to town. They had finished eating breakfast and were each locked away in their own minds as they sipped at their coffee and stared out the window into the misty morning.

“I want you to go somewhere with me today.” Will punctuated the statement by tapping his coffee cup down on the table.

Hannibal threw him an inquisitive look. “Oh?”

Will leaned forward on the table and gestured out towards the woods. “I explored the land around here a couple days ago. Found a lake.”

“Ah,” Hannibal made a noise of understanding and set his own coffee down. “I was wondering when you would discover that. I presume you’d like to spend some time fishing?”

Will chose not to feel ruffled at being so predictable. “Yes, but I want you to come with me.”

“I thought fishing was your escape.” Hannibal frowned slightly as he sought answers from Will’s face. “Something you preferred to do singularly.”

“I’m here in your old house.” Will gestured around as though the fact wasn’t clear. “This is your land, not mine.”

“And you want to partake of our exchange when you’re in your element,” Hannibal deduced. “On your grounds.”

“It’s only fair.”

A nod. “It is.”

Will couldn’t help it. He was surprised. “Really? That easy?”

Hannibal pushed away from the table and gathered their mugs. “That easy. When would you like me to be ready to leave?”

Will blinked dumbly at the question, turning in his chair to follow the other man as he cleaned up their breakfast. “An hour, I guess.”

“Do I need to bring anything?”

“No, but I wouldn’t recommend wearing anything…” He trailed off and gestured at Hannibal’s body. The man was already half dressed in a suit and it wasn’t even ten in the morning. “Wear something that’s better for the outdoors. For a mess. If you have anything like that.” He had a hard time imagining Hannibal _did_ have anything like that.

Hannibal took the jab in good humor. “I’m sure I can find something.”

Will stood somewhat awkwardly, set off kilter by how amicable Hannibal was persistent about being. “Right. Well I’ll see you in an hour, then.”

“An hour,” came Hannibal’s echoed agreement.

Sure enough, an hour later they were standing in the foyer with Will stiffly shifting back and forth between his feet and wondering how in the hell he had convinced Hannibal Lecter to do something as banal as stand at a lake quietly for hours on end. Then again, doing anything with Hannibal was unlikely to be banal, no matter what it was.

“I presume you were buying the necessary equipment yesterday?” Hannibal asked, slipping an overcoat over his shoulders. He had opted for a thick gray sweater and trousers rather than slacks. It was the simplest Will had seen him dress in a very long time.

Will nodded as he tugged on his own jacket. “I left it by the lake. There’s a shack there.”

Hannibal paused, looking thoughtful. “Yes. I used to tinker with things there, once upon a time.”

Will felt gob smacked by the information despite the mundane nature of it. All these days he had been wandering around the estate and picturing Hannibal in his youth—wondered what he had done, where he had done it, where his feet had walked. And yet, despite all those musings he hadn’t even stopped to consider that the rickety little shed that seemed so useless and decayed would be the thing that Hannibal himself would provide an image for.

He couldn’t help himself. He had to ask. He needed to know. “Tinkering?”

They left the house and were walking in crunching steps across the gravel. Will had a nagging fear in the back of his mind that Hannibal wouldn’t answer.

It was unwarranted. “I’ve always enjoyed creating, as you well know,” came the unfettered response. “I used to take fallen branches, stones, the things the forest provided and create with them. The lake was a sublime place to let the concerns of the world wash away. The silence cocooned me like a blanket. You and I are much alike, Will, in our fondness for the calm of a stream.”

Will glanced over his shoulder. Despite the fact that they were walking into what had been unanimously proclaimed to be Will’s territory, Hannibal didn’t look out of place at all. He fit as seamlessly into nature as he did a ballroom. Will toyed with the idea that it was not Hannibal who changed himself to fit the environment, but the environment that warped and molded to accommodate Hannibal. “What kind of things did you make?”

Hannibal considered for a moment. “Once I fashioned a bow from a young sapling growing at the edge of the woods. I spent hours on it; whittling away.” The memory manifested in Hannibal’s voice as they walked, taking on a melancholic hum. “Looking back, it was a dreadful thing, but I was only a boy and to me it had been a masterpiece.” He chuckled. “Sadly, I let a distant cousin toy with it during a visit and the blundering fool snapped the poor thing in two. I’d had half a mind to wring his neck for it.”

Will laughed. “I’m surprised you didn’t, considering.” And then it struck him. The bow. He had found a bow in the attic, snapped in two. The puzzle pieces scattered about the Lecter estate were beginning to come together in scraps. For how inconsequential each piece seemed to be, Will clung to them desperately. Each and every thing he learned felt somehow monumental, down to the smallest detail.

He could accuse himself of trying to humanize the man beside him in order to justify his compulsion—his need—to remain with him, know him, understand him, but that simply wasn’t true. He didn’t need to humanize Hannibal, for he was human already. Twisted and gnarled and so very different from most, but still human.

No, it wasn’t justification Will was looking for, but knowing. He simply wanted to _know_ him.

“Perhaps I should have, considering what came to pass with him in later years,” Hannibal mused. It took Will a moment to remember what the other man was replying to. He was so lost in his own thoughts. “But regret is only good for wallowing, dear Will. I’ve no use for wallowing.”

“There’s nothing you wish you could have done differently?”

“Had I done anything differently, anything at all.” Hannibal stepped forward in a long stride, making it out of the trees ahead of Will and stopping to view the lake. “I may not be standing with you here now.” He cast a glimmer of a smile in Will’s direction; barely a twitch of lips. “No, there is nothing I would have done differently.”

“That sounds dangerously close to justifying,” Will commented dryly, coming to a stop next to his companion.

“Merely acknowledging that both successes and mistakes have led to a moment that I would not trade.”

Will sighed. “Yeah.” Compulsively, he reached out and grabbed Hannibal’s elbow, staring at his own hand as though it had acted without consulting him.

Hannibal turned to him with a questioning look, stopping short when he saw the expression on Will’s face. “Will?”

“Sorry, I—“ Will snapped his mouth shut and flexed his jaw. He was still holding onto Hannibal’s arm. _Out with it_ his own voice growled inside his head. And so he spat it out. “I want to be able to touch you. I—not.” He shook his head to clear it and tried again. “Just generally. I want to be able to touch your arm or lean on you. I don’t have any particular reason that I can offer you, but I want to.”

“You don’t need to give me a reason,” Hannibal murmured quietly. “You are seeking connection and reassurance. You need physical confirmation that I am here and solid. I will always be happy to provide an answer to that question whenever you should need it, Will.” He turned to fully face the smaller man, keeping his movements slow and deliberate so as not to knock the hand off his arm. “Never feel that you must keep yourself from me. You have always been welcome, in this way as much as any other.”

Will let go of a breath that had been caught in his chest. “Okay, good.” He shut his eyes and took a halting step forward, fingers twisting into the wool of Hannibal’s overcoat. “Alright.” His head felt like a lead weight and he let it fall, forehead landing squarely on Hannibal’s shoulder. 

For a moment, he just stood there in the cold air of the morning, shivering when he felt a warm hand settle at the back of his neck. The gesture should have felt possessive or controlling. Instead, it was exactly what Hannibal had said. A reassurance. After a couple more beats, Will finally breathed in and stepped away, ignoring how cold his neck felt as Hannibal’s hand slipped from his skin.

“Like I said, the gear’s in here.” He set off for the shed, firmly pushing the determination he had found the day before back into place. “You’re going to join me, right? I don’t want you looming on the shore like a gargoyle.”

“I assure you that I had no intention of looming,” Hannibal called from outside the shed, waiting patiently for Will to retrieve the things and haul them out onto the shore.

Will had laughed for five minutes straight when he had first bought the waders. After all, picturing Hannibal in a three piece with waders was an amusing sight, but it was nothing compared to the plastic suit Will had seen before. He had only seen it once, but damn had it taken everything he had to not burst out laughing. Anyone with even an ounce of survival instinct knew better than to laugh in a serial killer’s face as he helped you dismember a body, but Will had been close. If he’d known preparing Tier would have involved costumes, he would have come better equipped.

Along with the waders he had managed to get a pre-made tackle box and two poles. He felt a wistful desire to make his own tackle, but after what had happened to the last ones he’d made, he figured it was probably better to just stick with the manufactured stuff. Bringing up his encephalitis days was not a conversation he wanted to go near with a ten foot pole.

To his credit, Hannibal said nothing about the waders, donning them with more dignity than any one man should possess when donning something so undignified.

When they were finally out hip-deep in the rolling green of the water and casting their lines, Will finally spoke.

“I didn’t realize you’d know how to do this.”

“I’m nowhere near as adept as you, but I have done some fishing in my time.”

Will grinned, the peace of the water and familiar movements seeping into his bones. “I have a hard time picturing you with a tin of worms and a case of beer, wasting the day away.”

“What a colorful picture you paint,” Hannibal quipped in good humor. “It’s true that I don’t quite fit into that frame, but there are many ways to fish and many places in which to do it. I once spent a summer week at Lac du Bourget in Savoie. Fishing was one of the many activities there, along with climbing the Nivolet to gaze out across the peaks.” He continued regaling Will with tales of France for the next hour, never once losing his enthusiasm as he described the rippling waters and jagged cliffs.

Will let Hannibal’s words wash over him, sinking into the tales and stories that he wove into a rich tapestry of sound and imagery. He could see the water of the lakes and rivers glimmering up at him like crystals, hear the clamor and commotion of the people milling about the market streets, and smell the crisp and mouthwatering aroma of fresh brioche.

Not for the first time, he wished that Hannibal could have shown him Florence. He wanted to see the world through Hannibal’s eyes—the way color became taste and sounds inspired a symphony of emotion and beauty. Hannibal saw the world in a way that no one else alive could possibly imagine. He saw flowers blooming from the chests of the dead and heard entire orchestras in a single whisper.

His world was a beautiful one and terrifying in the potency of its allure.

“Do you still want to show me?”

Hannibal didn’t turn to Will as he spoke, instead casting his line again and breathing in the smell of the earth. “To what are you referring?”

Will turned and felt the water push and pull at his waders. It cushioned the material against his body in billows. “You said before that you had wished to show me places, cities, whatever. Do you still want to?”

It was then that their eyes met. Hannibal’s own had taken on the discerning quality reserved for the moments when he was trying to ascertain Will’s intentions. Will, subsequently, felt scrutinized. Hannibal licked his lips. “Do you want me to show you, Will?”

Will was tempted to comment that Hannibal required a hell of a lot of affirmation for a man who was so self-assured, but he knew that wasn’t fair. “I’ve always wanted that.”

Hannibal frowned. The question written in the lines of his face was clear.

“Do you really think I’m still here because I don’t want that?” Will huffed.

“I’m endeavoring not to presume—“

“That’s a discreet way of saying you don’t want to get your hopes up because you don’t want to admit you have hopes in the first place.”

Hannibal nodded, yielding, but Will could tell his hackles were starting to rise. “Where do you wish to go?”

“Where do you want to take me?”

“Everywhere.”

The emphatic immediacy of the response shot a warm spark down Will’s spine. He shivered and looked away, trying to calm his heartbeat into something manageable. “What if I said yes?” His voice was hoarse and wary, barely able to be heard above the gentle ripples of the water. “What would that mean?”

Hannibal had given up all pretense of fishing, the rod hanging purposeless in his hands. “You’ve given me such assurances once.” His tone held a distinct note of warning and cautious anticipation.

“And I threw them in your face, I know.” Will saw no reason to mince words. “But we’ve been over that, haven’t we?” He faced Hannibal full-on again. “Back then, everything was on your terms. That’s not what this is. I’m here and there are no more games. We are both clear on who the other person is. There’s no reason for tricks and lies. There’s no point. I haven’t lied. Not here. Have you?”

“No.”

“Then do me the respect of listening to what I have to say.” Will’s voice was stronger than he felt, but he powered through. He let his fingertips trail across the surface of the water to focus his thoughts. His shoulder was beginning to ache. “You aren’t the only one who brought us here. I was complicit. You may have drugged me and stabbed me and torn me limb from limb, but don’t pretend for one second that you haven’t felt my fingers at your throat for months now. I stepped into your blade as much as you stepped into my mind and we both took those steps of our own volition.”

Hannibal’s face had fallen into a blank slate again. He looked vacant. “Perhaps we should finish this conversation on dry land.”

That was when Will knew he had the upper hand. Hannibal had done so well inserting himself into Will’s domain, feigning comfort outside of his element, but the façade was starting to slip. Will was the master of this place and he was going to use that to his advantage. “You aren’t the director of this play. You didn’t write this story. We both did. We are both here and it took me a damn long time to figure it out, but you have just as much control over this situation as I do. And just as little. The sooner we both accept that, the sooner we can trust each other.”

Hannibal swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the movement. “And do you trust me, Will?”

“I trust that you will always be you,” Will answered, dipping his fingers into the water again. “As long as you let me know you, _keep_ letting me know you…” He took a deep, steadying breath. “Keep letting me _see_ you, then I will trust the man I see. Will you take that away from me? Will you blind me?”

Hannibal stared at him—stared _into_ him—and his gaze held a thousand words and absolute silence all at once. “You have stepped further into the halls of my mind palace than anyone before you, Will. I could not expel you from those rooms if I tried.”

“Then yes, Hannibal, against what is likely all of my better judgment and sanity, I trust you.” And Will was surprised to find that he meant every word. If there was one thing he could trust, it was that Hannibal would always be Hannibal. As long as he knew who Hannibal was there was no reason not to trust in him. “Do you trust me?”

Again, Hannibal’s eyes had retreated to fathomless pools. And again, he said: “Perhaps we should finish this conversation on dry land.”

Perplexed, Will finally relented. He nodded and sloshed his way back to the shore , laying his rod down next to the cooler they had been storing their catches in. He turned, expecting Hannibal to answer his question when the man reached the shore himself. Instead, much to Will’s consternation, Hannibal bypassed him entirely and made his way to the shed, slipping out of the straps of his waders on the way.

Frowning, Will shrugged out of his own straps and grabbed his fishing rod. By the time he reached the shed, Hannibal had already deposited his waders and equipment onto the workbench and was making his way back outside. Grudgingly, Will followed suit. Whatever Hannibal was waiting to say, he was apparently resolved to wait until everything had been put away.  Will didn’t see a reason to argue. After all, having a serious conversation while standing on the shore in soggy fishing gear wasn’t exactly ideal.

When he had finally slipped his last leg out of the waders and trudged back out into the cool air of the woods, he found Hannibal waiting for him patiently, staring out across the lake. Will scratched the back of his head and leaned against the wall of the shed, following Hannibal’s gaze. Eventually, anxiety got the better of him.

“Should I be worried that you aren’t answering my question?” He instantly regretted speaking as Hannibal’s eyes were now on him rather than the lake, pinning him to the side of the shed like he’d been stuck to fly paper.

“And which question was that?” Hannibal inquired coolly.

So they were going to play that game? Will rolled his eyes. “Do you trust m—“

But the words didn’t finish because Hannibal’s hand was in his hair and his mouth was on Will’s and dear god, Hannibal was _kissing_ him. Will hadn’t even seen the man move. One moment he had been standing three feet away with his back straight and his eyes dark and now Will had a hand tugging his head back and teeth pulling at his lower lip and he had no idea how he had gotten here. So he did the only thing that seemed to make sense at the time. He gave in.

Hannibal knew the moment that Will had decided not to fight it because now his other hand was at the side of Will’s neck, thumb under his jaw as it tilted his head just so. Will’s own fingers had come up to grab at the collar of Hannibal’s sweater, tugging at it and probably ruining it. His shoulder protested the strain but he didn’t care. And the whole time their lips were moving—both of them—pulling and sliding and Will wasn’t sure whose tongue had tasted first but now they both were.

Will was dizzy with it all. Hannibal was kissing him and not only was he letting it happen, but he was pushing back, asking for more, claiming it for himself. As first kisses went, this was no timid touch of exploration and consideration. This was taking what you wanted and demanding more. When Will used his foot to propel himself away from the wall and pushed his tongue into Hannibal’s mouth, the groan it earned him practically made him lose his balance.

Hannibal tried to pull away, but Will shook his head and yanked him back by the collar. Hannibal chuckled into his mouth and kissed him deeply, hands framing his jaw and thumb pressing just barely into his pulse point. This time it was Will’s turn to groan when Hannibal bit sharply into his lower lip, reminding him exactly what that mouth was capable of.

This time when Hannibal pulled away, he held Will’s face tightly in his hands and waited until Will’s eyes opened, hooded and clouded, before he spoke. “Yes, Will. It seems that I trust you.”

Will breathed out a slight laugh. “You could have just said yes.”

Hannibal rubbed his thumb over Will’s swollen lip and stepped back, moving away from him entirely. “And suffer through another week of being unable to taste you? I think not.”

Will swallowed roughly and blinked through the bleary haze of arousal and adrenaline. “Aren’t you supposed to ask before you do something like that?”

“You’ve said it yourself, Will,” Hannibal walked over to the cooler and picked it up with ease. “I’m only human.” He smiled and it was wolfish. “Come now. Let’s get these to the kitchen so I can make something of this hard-earned prize.”

Somehow, Will doubted he was talking about the fish. He followed him anyway.

True to the routine they had established so far in their stay, Will gave up the kitchen to Hannibal and hovered back, drinking wine and losing himself in his own thoughts as he watched the other man go about his business. Hannibal had made good on his promise to put the fish they had caught to use and it had been so long since Will had smelled cooked fish that he couldn’t help but be transported back to his past.

He remembered the orange-hued evenings of his childhood, his father frying up some trout in a skillet and the bugs and the birds and the wilderness blending into a lulling percussion of sound. He would sit on the porch with his thin legs dangling off the edge and his bare feet brushing up against the prickly grass. His father would say nothing of the absent look in his eyes as he lost himself in his imagination and they would share a quiet dinner and drink cocoa.

Will took a deep breath at the memory, trying to hold it in. His father was far from perfect, but there had always been those moments—snapshots in time where Will had been happy.

“Where have you gone?”

Will blinked. “Hm?”

Hannibal cast him a quick glance before returning to peeling some garlic. “You ventured into the past. I’ve seen that look before.” He paused, scooping the garlic into a dish. “Did your reminiscence transport you somewhere kind or cruel?”

“A little of both, I guess.” Will shrugged and sipped at his wine, leaning more heavily on the stool he had plopped himself down on earlier. “I was thinking about my father.”

Hannibal raised an eyebrow at that. “The psychologist in me is intrigued. Dare I ask?” the smirk in his voice was evident.

Will shook his head and chuckled. “Nothing so sordid. Smelling the food just made me think of him cooking back when I was a kid.”

Hannibal made a noise of acknowledgment as he tossed the garlic into the pan. A sizzling filled the room. “Olfactory is one of the strongest contributors to sense memory.”

“I took the courses too, Hannibal.” Will tapped the side of his glass and it rang. “Got a degree and everything.”

“Forgive me. It’s habit to state these things.”

“And it’s a habit for me to get irritable when we start going textbook, even though I made a career out of it.” Will sighed and held his hands up in mock surrender. “I’m working on it.”

Hannibal gracefully sidestepped the topic. “Have you decided where you want me to take you?”

“Will it really be so simple?”

Hannibal thought on the question for a moment, focusing his attention on the fish. “I’m sure you are aware what it would mean for you were you to—“

“Run off into the sunset with you?” Will supplied. He wanted to take back the words as soon as he said them, but decided not to be embarrassed about it. It was accurate, more or less.

There was a shift in Hannibal’s shoulders that indicated silent laughter. “Indeed. I often forget I’m not the only romantic in the room.”

“You fancy yourself a romantic?” Will chewed the inside of his lip and looked back over the time he had known Hannibal. He was a man who was enamored by the arts, spoke sometimes solely in metaphor, and nearly everything he had said to Will since they met… “Alright. Don’t answer that. You don’t need to answer that.”

“You don’t think you are romantic at heart?”

“I’ve never considered myself that way,” Will admitted softly. He was toying with the stem of his glass again. “I’ve tried to be practical whenever I can, but there’s nothing practical about my being here, so you may have a point.” He finished off his glass and fixed a stare to Hannibal’s shoulders, watching the muscles as they moved beneath his shirt. “But my question still stands. It’s not as simple as us getting on a plane and hopping from city to city.”

“No, it’s not,” came Hannibal’s concise agreement. He didn’t sound particularly concerned. “If you align yourself with me completely, you can never again lead the normal life you once had should you ever experience the desire to do so.”

“Align?” Will rolled the word over his tongue. “This isn’t about choosing sides or picking teams.”

Hannibal turned the burner off and moved so he could give Will a once over. “Isn’t it? I’m certain Jack Crawford will see it that way. The others as well.”

Will pressed his lips together in a tight line. “I know that. I do.”

“You would be a criminal in the eyes of the law. We will be hunted.”

Will felt a nagging tug of frustration at the direction the conversation had taken. Why was Hannibal so insistent on pressing this point? Will knew damn well what he would be giving up if he stayed—if he continued to stay—with Hannibal. It was all he had thought about for months on end. He was well aware of what it would entail. He decided to say as much.

“Hannibal, don’t you think that’s glaringly obvious?” he bit out sharply. “Do you think I expected to stay with you and frolic easily into some magical land where murder is legal and it’s perfectly acceptable to run off with a notorious serial killer on the FBI’s most wanted? What is it you’re trying to remind me of, exactly? Whatever it is, I can promise you I already have uncomfortable clarity.”

A small frown was tilting down the corners of Hannibal’s lips. He turned his head like a bird trying to suss out some new and strange thing it had discovered. “I merely want to acknowledge the gravity of this decision. I’d be remiss if I did not allow for the possibility that you may come to regret your choices.”

“I’m not a child. I’m capable of making decisions and recognizing their consequences.” Will stood up from the stool and nearly stormed into the kitchen to fetch the bottle of wine. “It would make no sense for you to try and scare me off, so what’s the point of this?” He reached for the bottle and was stopped short when a large hand encircled his wrist and tugged. He stumbled and his shoulder fell into Hannibal’s chest clumsily, sending a sharp pain through his arm.

Hannibal wrapped his arms around Will’s frozen form, resting his mouth against the messy curls at the side of his head and inhaling deeply. “I’m not trying to frighten you away, Will,” he murmured, his breath pressing warmly over Will’s ear. “Far from it. I simply don’t want to come this far only for you to realize the idea you’re toying with has consequences too grave for you to bear.”

Torn between pulling away from the embrace or leaning further into it, Will settled for a happy medium and stood as he was. “Is that what you think? That I’m toying with the idea?” He pursed his lips and added: “This is hurting my shoulder, you know.”

Hannibal let out a small grunt and maneuvered the smaller man in his arms flawlessly, turning him until his chest was pressed snugly against Will’s back. This time, when he spoke it was against the nape of Will’s neck. One of his palms was flat against Will’s stomach. “Is this alright?”

Will snorted. “If it wasn’t I would have punched you by now.” He didn’t want to talk about the position they were in. It was terribly intimate and dangerously domestic. Couldn’t Hannibal just let him enjoy it without calling attention to it? He shut his eyes. Every time Hannibal breathed Will could feel the air fluttering against the back of his neck. It was distracting.

“I’m sure you would have,” Hannibal agreed, his voice pitched low and steady. “Are you toying with the idea, Will? I was under the impression the topic remained one of consideration, not decisive action.”

Will gave the question enough respect to think about it. It was the entire point of this trip, after all. Up until the last few hours he had still been deliberating over it quite fruitlessly. He never seemed to get anywhere when trapped inside his own head. It was a constant back and forth where nothing was ever accomplished and the same questions kept getting asked over and over. The only time he ever made any progress was when he spoke his thoughts aloud—when he said what was instinctual and off the cuff. Perhaps that was the way he would have to handle things from now on if he ever wanted to get anywhere.

That thought in mind, Will spoke the first words that crept up his throat before he could stomp them down with diffidence and hesitation. The words he uttered weren’t the ones he expected to say, but they were the ones he needed to.

“I can’t imagine my life without you. I’ve tried. It’s been the source of nightmares for months.” The arms tightened around him, but Hannibal didn’t speak. “Sometimes the nightmare is because you’re there. Like I can’t escape you. Like I’m trapped. But other times.” Cautiously, Will reached up a hand and laid it over the top of the one resting on his stomach. He felt fingers curl under his own before relaxing again.

“Other times the nightmare is the idea of you not being there. I’ve tried to picture it. What I would be like without you there. Never seeing you again.” His hand curled around Hannibal’s  and he knew his decision was made. For better or worse, it was made. He was probably a fool, but it looked like foolish was the only thing he was capable of being anymore. “I can’t imagine it. My mind comes up empty. The idea of you vanishing leaves me standing there in nothing. I feel like I wouldn’t even be able to see myself in the mirror. I’d just disappear.”

With a heaving sigh, Will let his head fall back against Hannibal’s shoulder and he stared at the ceiling. “When you left back in Baltimore, I was so angry at you. I was angry at myself, at you, at Jack. I was angry at everyone. At first I blamed you for everything. You came into my life, trampled all over it, and then just left me on the floor in pieces.” Hannibal’s head dipped down and Will felt the other man’s cheek against his own. It was the closest they’d ever been—closer than the kiss by far. Hannibal was surrounding him in that moment. Will felt enveloped.

It made him feel rested.

“But then I realized I wasn’t angry. I was desperate. When you left, you left behind a void, Hannibal. It was the most disconcerting and disturbing feeling I’ve ever experienced. I don’t ever want to feel that void again.” Will shuddered. “It ate me alive. I crossed an ocean to escape it.”

Will felt rather than heard Hannibal begin to speak. He felt his jaw open and head shift, but he quickly raised a hand to silence whatever was coming. “Wait. Just—“ His jaw clicked as he tensely bit down on his words. “I need to get it out. Alright?”

Hannibal said nothing. He was so still Will wasn’t even sure he was breathing.

“So to answer your question, yes. I have been toying with the idea, running it through my head over and over again, and every time I think I have a grip on what I want to do?” He pushed his head back into Hannibal’s shoulder briefly. “Well, let’s just say it hasn’t been easy. I’m not going to lie and tell you I’m completely sure, without a doubt, that I will always be alright with having to hide. I can’t promise you that I won’t feel regret sometimes and question my decisions. It’s who I am. It’s going to happen.” It was easier to say these things when Hannibal’s eyes weren’t on him; when he couldn’t see his face. But this wasn’t supposed to be easy and so Will forced himself to pull away and step back, turning around to face his demons.

Hannibal’s face was a maze of reactions, each so subtle they were nearly indistinguishable. He was watching Will intently.

It took everything Will had to maintain their eye contact. “And if you’re wondering if I’ll kill with you, I can’t promise you that either.” He raised his hand again when Hannibal moved to speak, shaking his head. “I know you want that. You promised not to lie, so don’t try to argue. And I’ve thought about it. I have. I’ve considered what I’m willing to do and what I’m willing to become. All I’ve come up with is that I honestly have no idea. Everything that has happened since you—well.” Will laughed helplessly and shrugged. “Since _you,_ has been unexpected. You’ve revealed aspects of myself that I never knew existed or maybe denied the existence of. I don’t know what I’ll be willing to do one day. Hell, what I even might _want_ to do one day.”

A gleam passed over Hannibal’s eyes, but he kept his silent vow not to interrupt.

Will was relieved that the other man was letting him go on for this long. He was beginning to feel like he was rambling, but now that he was speaking it was all rushing out in a wave. He couldn’t stop if he tried. “But one thing I do know is that the void you left behind you is something I can’t handle. There are so many unknowns in our future, but that isn’t one of them. I need you, Hannibal, and I know in some ways that probably makes you feel victorious. Part of me wants to be mad at you for that, but I’m not.” He searched Hannibal’s face for a moment, looking for the confirmation to his own thoughts. “Because you need me too, don’t you?”

Hannibal was silent for a long time. Whether it was from the uncertainty that Will was done talking or a conscious effort to bypass his need to avoid admitting weakness, it couldn’t be certain. When he spoke, the quality of his voice seemed far off and distant like he was speaking from the chasm of is mind palace. “I do.”

Will’s eyebrows furrowed. “You do what? Do me the service of being direct here, Hannibal.”

Hannibal’s cheek twitched at the demand, but he allowed it. “I do need you, Will. I thought that was clear.”

“The only thing you’ve made explicitly clear is that you can survive anything and anyone. That you see yourself as impenetrable,” Will countered. “Why should I believe that my existence is any different to you? It’s just as likely that you see me as a tool rather than a necessity.”

Hannibal took the comments in stride, never wavering. “A tool is used when desired. A necessity is required regardless of desire. I have found in these past months that I have been scattered in your absence.”

His hands shifted and stilled and Will realized he was stopping himself from fidgeting. It was one of the most human traits he’d ever seen manifest in the steadfastly poised man. “Scattered?”

Hannibal nodded curtly and smoothed his hands over the front of his sweater. “These past months I have found myself with decidedly less focus than I have ever experienced and with far less self-control than I normally endeavor to maintain. In short, Will, your absence has been felt. I do not wish to experience it again, if I have such an option.”

Normally Hannibal was the one who did all the talking, but this time it was Will who had been the outspoken one. Hannibal, it seemed, was at a loss for words. He didn’t expound or elaborate. He simply stood there, staring blankly at him. Waiting for something.

As Will looked at the man in front of him, he recognized how utterly mind-blowing the situation was. Somehow, beyond all reason, he had managed to make a man of a monster. He couldn’t delude himself into thinking that the monster was gone. It would never leave. Hannibal would always be a thing of claws and fangs and shadows. He would always be the harbinger of death and beauty.

But Will had discovered the man that the beast had all but consumed. He had reached into the belly of the beast and found a human being. The realization was humbling and even as he felt the jaws of the monster digging into his flesh and marking him with permanence, he could feel the man in the palm of his hand. If he let go, so would those jaws. He knew that without having to ask. He would be free.

Will found that he didn’t want to let go. To take the man, he would be forced to take the monster.

It was easier than he expected to think the words.

 _So be it_.

If he had to take both, then he would. He wanted to. God help him, but he wanted to.

Will cleared his throat of all the thoughts and emotions choking up inside it and looked Hannibal in the eye. “Some people will call me crazy. Say you twisted my mind. Corrupted me.”

Hannibal pursed his lips and nodded. “And what will you say?”

“To them? Nothing. The real insanity would be trying to explain any of this to anyone.”

“Some would argue that anything that is beyond rational explanation must, therefore, be insane,” Hannibal responded. His lips were still pursed, head still tilted, eyes continuously lost in thought.

Will gave him a half smile. “Do you think you’re insane, Hannibal?” He wondered if anyone had ever asked him that point blank before. It was doubtful.

“No, but neither do I think myself sane.” Hannibal turned to take the pan off the stove, glancing at Will over his shoulder to show he wasn’t brushing off the topic. “I believe sanity is a construct people use to find justification in their thoughts and actions.”

“Of course you do,” Will chuckled back, shaking his head. He moved until he could lean back against the counter and watch Hannibal finish making their dinner. “But as for what I would say to you, or in general? I would say the idea of this being a product of your corruption offends me. It makes me sound like I’m a puppet on strings. I may have felt that way once, but I don’t anymore.”

“I find the concept of you drawn back by strings to be a particularly distasteful one,” Hannibal agreed as he made their plates. He handed Will his own, completely neglecting his usual habits of presentation and delivery in favor of continuing their conversation.

They walked into the dining room and Will took it upon himself to pour their wine. Briefly, he considered that they might be drinking too much, but it wasn’t as though they were having wine with every meal, so he told himself to relax. “I also think attributing all of this to you is giving you too much credit.” At Hannibal’s questing glance, Will smiled and took a sip of his wine. “It wasn’t easy for me to get here. I fought my own battles to make it this far. To place it all on you makes everything I’ve done and everything I’ve been through…” He trailed off, looking for a word.

“Insignificant, perhaps?” Hannibal suggested.

“Yes, or just… less, somehow. It belittles it.”

Hannibal regarded him silently for a while, leaning back in his chair and toying with his wine glass. “You do not wish to lose the validity of who you have become.”

“No, I suppose I don’t,” Will said quietly. “I’m not entirely sure who I’ve become yet. Not completely, anyway. But it’s more than what I was before. It’s—“ He winced and shifted his thoughts around like a deck of cards. “Not better, but I would be lying through my teeth if I said I didn’t feel stronger for it.”

“I would see you flourish in that strength.” Hannibal had yet to touch his food. The conversation was far more appetizing to both of them. “I would see you build upon it.”

“I know you would.” Will turned away and stared down into his plate. He mulled over his words. Now that he had come to a decision of sorts, he was allowing himself to consider the prospects of what it might mean. “You’ll need to give me time, Hannibal. You’ll need to let me decide the when and the how and everything in between. You push me and you’ll break me.”

“You’re not as fragile as you think you are, Will.”

“But I am more fragile than you wish I was.” The look Will turned to Hannibal then brooked no argument. This was not something he would bend on. Hannibal had to understand that. He needed to realize that Will was not impervious. Will was only a man and he had to be treated like one. He could break and bleed like any other man. He could hurt. “I’m not weak, but I’m not made of steel. You throw me into the fire and I _will_ burn.”

Hannibal blinked. His fingers were tracing the bottom of his wine glass as he scanned his eyes over Will’s face. “Were I to throw you anywhere, such a movement would take you further away from me. If there is anything I have learned in our encounters, Will, it is that. The last thing I wish to do is throw you further from me.”

Will snorted. “You’re telling me your primary lesson has been in physics?” He tried to bat the comment away with a joke, but in truth Hannibal’s words had made his heart speed up and it was taking everything he had to keep his hands steady. With a slowly dawning shock, he realized what he was feeling. The shaking hands, the pounding heart, and dizziness and overwhelming tension in his chest.

Oh, so _that’s_ what that was.

That’s what it had been this whole time, probably.

He didn’t let himself think the words. They weren’t necessary, somehow. They weren’t needed. But they were there all the same, simmering beneath every look they sent each other’s way, every word, every silence that hung in the air around them. The kind of connection that two people share that transcends what’s spoken.

For all the time Will had spent analyzing the situation, he was appalled that he hadn’t realized it sooner. Really, it was laughable. He had thought that was only something that happened in movies. No real person would love someone and not even realize it. Who could possibly be so blind?

Will sighed when he caught himself thinking the word in spite of himself. He shut his eyes and shook his head. Love. There was no taking it back now. Even if it was only a thought, it had been thrown out into the abyss. There was no snatching it back. He would be grasping at shadows.

“Where have I lost you to?” Hannibal prodded calmly.

Will opened his eyes and let his vision focus on the man next to him. He took in a deep breath and held it for a moment, trying to gain his bearings. When he exhaled, the rush of air brought acceptance with it. “You didn’t lose me anywhere.” He smiled and shook his head again, as though the whole situation was pitting him in a constant state of amusement and disbelief. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Slowly, Hannibal blinked and his hand stopped moving against his glass. For a fraction of a second, the crease between his brows furrowed and softened. “Have you come to a decision, then?”

“There’s more than one decision to come to, Hannibal,” Will retorted benevolently. Finally deciding his hunger wasn’t going to fix itself, he speared a section of the fish. It broke off with minimal effort and he took a bite. He moaned around the mouthful. “This is fantastic. It’s always so fantastic.”

Hannibal’s eyes were alight, but he didn’t follow suit. His gaze was still set squarely on Will.

Will took pity. “Yes, I’ve made a decision. One of them, anyway.” He took another bite and waited until he swallowed to continue. Part of him was enjoying dragging it out. One last little jab as payback for all the thorns and brambles Hannibal had torn him through to get to this place. Petty, sure, but worth it for the look on the older man’s face. He swallowed back some wine and set his fork down. “I’ll go with you. I don’t care where. I don’t think I’ve cared this whole time. I think that’s the problem.” He rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. “I’ve been _trying_ to care because I was supposed to. I was supposed to hesitate and doubt and morally equivocate, but…” He held his hands up in a helpless gesture. “It’s exhausting trying to do those things. I told you before I’m exhausted and I wasn’t lying.”

Once again, Will had seemed to have struck Hannibal speechless. It wasn’t any more settling than it had been the first time. Each time it happened, Will was teetering amidst the options of feeling irresistibly proud of himself and wholly discomfited by Hannibal’s increasingly common state of disbelief.

He felt compelled to fill the silence. “Am I making sense here? I’m saying that I want to go with you, Hannibal. I may not know everything I want or what’s going to happen, but I’m sick and damned tired of acting like I—“

“Will.” Hannibal interrupted him rather suddenly. It was unlike him to be so stilted in his speech. He seemed hanging on the edge of something. To Will, it almost looked like frustration, but that couldn’t be right.

Will frowned. “What is it?” It was only then that he noticed how dark Hannibal’s eyes had become—how tense he was.

Hannibal wasted no time beating around the bush. He got straight to the point. “Kiss me.”

Will balked. “Wh—are you serious? Right now?”

Hannibal’s stare was unwavering. His expression was as serious as if he had just delivered dark and terrible news to someone. He moved his hand until his palm faced towards the ceiling. An open invitation. “Kiss me.”

“You can’t just—“

“Why can’t I?”

Will couldn’t find a suitable argument for that. What was he supposed to do? They had only kissed once and Hannibal had caught him off guard that time. It wasn’t as though Will had been complaining, but he couldn’t just do it at the drop of a hat now. He bit the inside of his cheek. Could he?

The moment was so surreal that Will was having a hard time believing the conversation was even happening.

“Will.”

Will’s attention snapped up again. He hadn’t even noticed he had looked away.

“I will make this very simple for you,” Hannibal said steadily. His voice was rough and measured. “You have just told me you wish to remain by my side. I really must insist that you kiss me now.”

“You…” Will swallowed and laughed helplessly. “You insist. You can’t be unaware of how hard it is for me to wrap my mind around—“

Again, Hannibal interrupted him. For once, the infamous Lecter patience seemed to be null and void. “Kiss me.”

Gritting his teeth, Will slapped his own thigh. He may have agreed to staying, but that didn’t mean Hannibal could just demand anything he wanted. Then again, Hannibal hadn’t moved from his seat. He had made no move towards Will other than to extend his hand. He wasn’t forcing it. He was just asking. Repeatedly. Will rubbed his leg and looked away. He felt trapped on the side of a broken bridge with Hannibal yelling at him to jump across it. It wasn’t as though it was that big of a leap at this point, right?

Aggravated by his own hesitation, Will growled. “I won’t just jump if you snap your fingers!”

Hannibal remained unphased. “Kiss me.”

“You sound like a broken record.”

A pause. A blink. “Kiss me, Will.”

Will huffed and tapped his heel on the floor. “Say it as many times as you want. This is childish.”

The corner of Hannibal’s lips tilted ever so slightly upwards into a smirk. “Kiss me.”

It was probably the smirk that had done it, but Will wasn’t in a right mind to know for sure. What he did know is that he was practically leaping out of his chair as soon as those lips had so much as twitched. At first he had considered wrapping his hands around the other man’s throat just to wipe the smile off his face. Instead, his hands were shoving Hannibal by the collarbone—and damn if his shoulder didn’t smart from that move—and he was slamming their mouths together in such an uncoordinated movement that it couldn’t even be called a kiss at all.

Trying again, Will used his good arm to tangle a hand in Hannibal’s hair and tug his head back as he leaned over the man’s chair, pressing their lips together again; hard enough to feel teeth. He was pulling back again seconds later, barely enough air between them to be called separation at all.

“There,” he hissed. “Is that what you wanted?”

Hannibal words moved against his mouth. “Yes.” He reached up and grabbed Will by the belt loops, pulling the man down without giving him a chance to catch his balance.

Will found himself straddling Hannibal without so much as a “how do you do” before he could blink. A hefty handful of expletives found their way out of his mouth and he tightened his grip on Hannibal’s hair. The movement simply earned him another smile.

“Kiss me,” Hannibal whispered. Flecks of color darkened his cheeks and his eyes were wild.

Will was absolutely destroyed by how much the image affected him. “Shut up.” And he did as he was told.

This kiss was messy and eager. Hannibal leaned forward and dug his fingers into Will’s hips. Will was twisting the hair in his hand and pressing at Hannibal’s tongue with his own. He groaned when he felt their bodies shift and for the first time he learned what it was like to have Hannibal want him in every way.

Will’s mind was racing. How had they gotten here? Only days ago he hadn’t even been sure if he had wanted to stay at all and now he had Hannibal’s tongue in his mouth and hand up the back of his shirt and cock pressing against his own through their pants and—

“Fuck.” Will gasped out when Hannibal’s hips jerked up once, almost as if they were confirming that yes, they were doing this. This was happening. Hannibal’s mouth found the underside of his jaw and he was sucking there, biting, licking every inch. Will was shaking. He hadn’t felt like this when someone had kissed him in years. His skin was on fire and he could barely keep up from one moment to the next. The adrenaline and excitement of it all were numbing his mind. It was a blur. Words came out of his mouth unbidden. “Do that again. Again.” And he pushed his hips down.

He didn’t have it in him to be embarrassed. He’d have plenty of time for that later.

And then Hannibal _moaned_ against his neck and Will wanted to tear into something. He wanted to bite into anything until he felt his teeth snap through. He wanted a lot of things.

He settled for repeating Hannibal’s words back at him. “Kiss me.”

Hannibal was back to his mouth instantly, sucking Will’s lip between his teeth and using his tongue in ways that were downright filthy. Will tried to give back as good as he got, but he was drowning. Hannibal was swallowing him whole which each swipe of his tongue and sharp roll of his hips. Will opened his eyes and found dark, intent ones staring back up at him. The sight sent a jolt straight down his spine and he shuddered.

He should have expected this. He should have known this would be every bit as intense as everything else that had transpired between them, but as always Will was blown away. He was taken completely by surprise. It seemed that no matter what, Hannibal would always be able to undo him at the slightest provocation. If he pressed at just the right angle, Will would once again find himself in a state of disarray.

Will found that right now that wasn’t such a bad place to be.

He slid his fingers down Hannibal’s neck, savoring the feeling of his skin, and dipped them beneath the collar of his sweater. It was then that Hannibal decided to pull back. He was gripping Will under his shirt, hands on either side of his ribcage, and he used the hold to push the other man back a bit. They were both panting and flushed.

“We should stop.” Hannibal’s voice was so gritty it could cut diamonds.

Will squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to regain some coherence. “Don’t try to play that cliché. Come on.”

“Making multiple life-changing decisions in one,” Hannibal swallowed and took a breath and Will felt downright cocky at the fact that Hannibal was this disheveled and out of sorts because of _him._ It was a power trip if he’d ever had one. “In one night,” Hannibal tried again. His voice was steadier this time. “Is never wise. You have come to the conclusion that you wish to remain with me. That alone is consequential.”

Will sighed and tried to convince his body to calm down. He knew Hannibal was right.

“You asked me not to throw you into the fire,” Hannibal continued, hands slowly sliding out of Will’s shirt. “That includes me not allowing you to throw _yourself_ in, I suspect.”

Will grunted, deciding to get out of Hannibal’s lap before it either became impossible for him to do so or it became unbearably awkward. Hannibal helped him steady himself on surprisingly shaky legs. “You don’t always have to be right about these things, you know,” he grumbled. When he looked back, he saw the tent in Hannibal’s trousers and froze. Hannibal made no attempt to hide it.

“Does seeing my interest make you uncomfortable, Will?”

Will blinked and tore his eyes away, rubbing his hands over his face and slumping back down into his own chair. “No. If it made me uncomfortable I wouldn’t have been—“ He rolled his eyes and gestured ambiguously towards Hannibal. “Well. Everything I just did. I think it’s safe to say that your interest didn’t make me uncomfortable, Hannibal.”

There was a dry chuckle from Hannibal’s corner of the table. “I hope you do not see this as a rejection.”

“Of course not.” Will took a hefty swig of his wine. It mixed with the taste of Hannibal in his mouth. Good god, he could taste Hannibal. His life had completely spun away from anything he had planned, hadn’t it? “You’re right. We don’t need to be diving headfirst into the ocean.”

“You have always preferred to wade into the stream.”

_Wade into the quiet of the stream._

Will shivered as the ghost of old words echoed back at him. They held a different connotation now. “Are you worried I’ll wake up tomorrow and realize this was all some big mistake?”

“Do I deny the possibility? No.” Hannibal responded, standing to pick up their plates. “The food is cold. Give me a moment to heat it up.”

Will reached out and stopped him by the arm before he could go. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Hannibal fixed him with the same level look he used to give him when Will was rambling about his troubles back in his office in Baltimore. “The man who kissed me just now was not a man who doubted his position on the matter. There will be deliberation over the details. Of this, I have no doubt. But no, Will.” His eyes fell to the hand still resting on his forearm. “I do not feel concerned that you will wake up and decide this was all a terrible sham. Do you?”

“I—“ Will’s mouth hung open a little and he felt the warmth of Hannibal’s skin against his palm. “No. I don’t.” The words came out with a clear ring of surprise. It was true. Will wasn’t feeling regret. Worry? Absolutely. But regret? Try as he might to search for an indication of remorse within the rivers of his mind, Will could find nothing. The water was calm. For once, there were no roiling waves of self-doubt or duress.

Will felt like this was the first decision he had made in years that had been completely bereft of the endless second-guessing that had plagued him for so long. This was the decision that was supposed to be the hardest. This was the one that he was supposed to feel guilt over—the one that was supposed to destroy him as a man and make him question everything from his sanity to his nature. Somehow, though, this was the first decision he had made that had settled quietly within the recesses of his mind without complaint.

There was no battle here. Will couldn’t even find it in himself to struggle with the irony of it all.

“I’m not concerned.” He let his hand slip from Hannibal’s arm. “Go heat up the food.”

Wordlessly, Hannibal nodded and left the room, leaving Will to stare vacantly at the table and contemplate how in the hell he had ended up here. How, of all the places in all the world, the one where he wasn’t supposed to be was the one where he found himself wanting to stay. Without Jack’s commands and Alana’s judgment and the requirements of his life, Will was free to think of nothing but what felt right for him and him alone.

Surprised as he was to discover it, this was what felt right.

And shit, if that wasn’t as crazy as something could be.

The only question was, what now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's only one part left and it will be posted either tomorrow or Sunday since I haven't finished writing it yet. If it drags out too long I might have to split it in 2 parts, but I think I've guestimated pretty well so that shouldn't happen.
> 
> I hope you're all enjoying the progression. Keep me apprised!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I find myself in near constant wonder at how often you are surprised by your own words.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done, it's done. I finished it. See? Look, I did it. Do you know how many pages I wrote in only a few days? So many. Much pages. All the pages. I am so very tired.
> 
> But yes, so the gay takes a major leap up in this chapter. There is a great deal of gay.
> 
> I'm fully aware that I'm not particularly eloquent right now, but don't judge me too harshly because it's 2:30 in the morning and I just finished writing this and this was the longest chapter of all of them.
> 
> Enjoy!!

Will woke to the jarring clamor of a car driving by.

Startled, he jolted upright in his seat, frowning in confusion as the world came alive around him. He was sitting in a small bistro chair on a stone patio, a murmuring jumble of pedestrians walking by. He scrambled to find something familiar and looked first at the table he was sitting at. It was clear save for two empty coffee cups and a napkin that was fluttering in the breeze. To his left, an ornate, hand-painted sign indicated he was currently seated at a café, but what café? The name wasn’t in English. He couldn’t recognize—

“I brought you another cup.”

Will’s eyes shot up to see the smiling face of Hannibal standing over him, blotting out the sun with his broad shoulders. At seeing Will’s bemused state, his smile wavered and he sat the coffee on the table, moving to take the seat across from him.

“Where are we?” Will managed to stammer out.

Hannibal gave him an odd look. “Drink your coffee, Will. You’ll feel better.”

Swallowing thickly, Will nodded and reached for his cup. When he looked down, he choked in horror. In the cup was a heart—still beating, still bleeding, still warm—and the blood from each pulse of the muscle pushed out over the rims and slid down his fingers. His first instinct was to fling the mug away from himself, but his fingers seemed glued to the ceramic. “Wh—what?”

When he looked back up at Hannibal, everything had changed. No longer was the day bright and clear. A foreboding red twilight had settled over the streets. The people around them had vanished. The cars were gone. The street lights flickered. Only Hannibal remained, staring impassively back at him from across the table. But now Hannibal’s hands were coated in blood and the stained fingers were clasped calmly on the table.

“Why do you look so frightened, Will?”

Will could still feel the blood rushing over his fingers, hot and thick, but his eyes were locked on the face in front of him. There was nothing in that face. It was hollow; lifeless. “This isn’t you.”

“You know as well as I do that this is a part of me. You asked for this,” Hannibal countered. His voice was a soft, soothing monotone. It sent a chill up Will’s back. There was something wrong here. There was a blackness in Hannibal that Will had never seen. For all Hannibal’s darkness, there had always been colors and shadows and shapes for Will to see and hold on to. But now there was nothing but endless, depthless black. “You wanted this, Will.”

“No.” Will shook his head and finally managed to shove the cup away. He chanced a glance at it to find that the heart was gone. His hands were as clean as they had been moments earlier. Untarnished. He flexed them just to be sure. “No, this isn’t what I wanted.”

Hannibal frowned. If anyone else had been on the receiving end of that look, they would have been terrified. Honestly, Will _was_ terrified in that moment. “You cannot have me in pieces,” Hannibal said simply.

The electric buzz of a light flickering in one of the street lamps made Will jump in his skin. “That’s not what I—“

“You convinced yourself you could take the monster and the man,” Hannibal hissed sharply. Shadows were growing out of his back. Horns, claws, the bony and skeletal frame of the demon. It was all pouring out of him like oil bleeding into a canvas. “Have you fooled yourself, Will? Or have you simply made hollow promises?”

“No!” Will’s back was digging into his chair as he tried to push away from the shadows. They were reaching for him, ready to drag him in. “I know what I’m choosing. I know what I signed up for.”

Hannibal’s laugh was mocking and cruel. Will had never heard such a sound from the other man’s lips. This beast before him was one of misery and malice. Hannibal’s beast was one of savagery and elegance. This was not Hannibal.

With a snarl, Will leapt across the table. He would tear this imposter apart. He would rip into the blackness and spill it over the pavement. His hands went for the monster’s throat and wrapped around, tightening harder and harder.

“W-will.”

Will grit his teeth. He could see the wicked eyes of the villain gleaming up at him like black coals. He pressed harder.

“Wi—stop—“

The voice was weak and tremulous. It didn’t match the victorious smile of sharp fangs and vindictive pleasure. Something was batting at his arm and pushing his chest. Without warning, there was an agonizing pressure on his shoulder.

With a harsh and violent gasp, Will woke up to see Hannibal’s flushed face inches from his own. His hands were wrapped around the other man’s throat, thumbs digging into his windpipe, and Hannibal’s own hand was hanging around his wrist.

With a curse, Will dropped his hands and shot back across the bed. “Shit!” His back hit the headboard and his shoulder was screaming in pain. “Fuck, fuck, shit!” He knew he should be saying more, but his mind was spinning and Hannibal was gasping in breaths like a drowning man and it took Will an excessively long time to understand what had happened. When he did, his stomach roiled. “Hannibal, I’m so sor—“

Hannibal waved his hand, massaging his bruised throat with the other. “No, Will.” His voice was hoarse and scratchy and Will shut his eyes and knocked his head back against the wall. “Don’t apologize. You were having a nightmare. I could,” Hannibal paused to swallow and take a breath. “I could hear your shouts from down the hall and so I tried to wake you. The mistake is mine for being taken off guard.”

“You are fully capable of immobilizing me,” Will snapped, suddenly irrationally angry. “Why the hell didn’t you?”

“You are wounded, Will. I didn’t want to hurt you.” Hannibal frowned and looked at Will’s shoulder. “Unfortunately, I was ultimately forced to apply pressure to your wound in order to wake you. You were quite far gone. I need to look at your shoulder and make certain I didn’t do any significant damage.”

Will laughed bitterly, his anger dissipating as quickly as it had come. “I nearly choke you out and you want to make sure I’m okay.”

Hannibal gave him a small smile and placed a heavy hand on Will’s knee over the covers. “Will, I do not hold you responsible for fending off the demons of your sleep.”

“I was fending you off, actually.” Will tripped up on his words when he saw the change in Hannibal’s expression. “Not you. It was a fake you. A monster wearing your face.”

“Some would argue that is, in fact, what I am.”

“Yes,” Will sighed and gingerly sat forward, trying not to jostle his shoulder. The burn was spreading down his bicep, but he tried to ignore it. “But I’ve seen your monster. That one I’m okay with. The one in the dream? Not so much.”

Hannibal watched Will curiously as he shifted closer to him. “You truly find yourself at peace with all my—“ His voice caught for a moment when Will reached out and traced his fingertips over the newly forming bruises on his throat. “Attributes?”

“Peace?” Will shook his head and watched his fingers as they slid softly over marred skin. He exhaled as Hannibal’s Adam’s apple jumped underneath his touch. “No. There’s nothing peaceful about it. But do I accept it and sometimes even appreciate it? Yes, I do.” He looked up to find Hannibal’s eyes boring into his own. This time the gaze was not lifeless and empty. It held a thousand words. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Hannibal hummed a quiet sound. “You’ve confessed to wanting to do so countless times.”

Will let a half-smile slide onto his face. “Yes, but never unintentionally.” He was rewarded with a dark chuckle. Hesitating for a moment, he bit his lip and looked back down at Hannibal’s throat. “Is kissing something we do now?”

“Do you want it to be?”

“Logic is telling me I’m just infatuated with something new and interesting,” Will murmured. He leaned forward before he could think better of it and buried his nose in Hannibal’s neck, taking in a deep breath of the heat and spice of him. He felt the slight intake of breath and shift of weight as Hannibal adjusted to accommodate him and he smiled, grazing his lips over one of the bruises. Then his tongue.

“Will.” Hannibal said it in a short sort of groan. “Your shoulder. I really do need to tend to it.” But he wasn’t pushing him away. Instead, his hand had curled into Will’s hair.

“I know,” Will replied. He licked at the flesh under his mouth again just to feel the shiver it caused. He could get used to this. He could get chaotically and dangerously and blindly used to this. “It hurts like hell.”

Hannibal pushed the smaller man back by his good shoulder and stared at him critically. The half-lidded eyes and blown pupils didn’t serve his purpose to look severe, but he managed to get his point across nonetheless. “Then let me tend to you. We have no shortage of time.”

Will flushed from embarrassment. What was he doing? Assaulting Hannibal like a randy teenager? Was he really so far gone that his self-control was in tatters? This was rid—

His thoughts scattered like leaves in the wind when Hannibal kissed him. It wasn’t like before—rushed and needing. It was slow and wet and Will could hear each time their lips pulled apart in the quiet of the room. Hannibal’s tongue dipped into his mouth and for a moment the kiss became _more_ before it tapered off again. When they separated, a breathy laugh escaped Will’s throat.

“So this _is_ something we’re doing now.”

“So it would seem.”

Hannibal stood and Will swung his legs over the side of the bed. The first light of the morning was beginning to make its way through the window. “I feel like part of me should be questioning how easy it is to fall into this, but we’ve been dancing around it for a long time, haven’t we?”

Hannibal walked over to the window, waiting as Will searched around for sweatpants to pull over his boxers. “One could argue that this was one of multiple possible inevitabilities, yes.”

Will snorted. “Multiple possible inevitabilities. Say that five times fast. Should we go to the sitting room?”

Hannibal turned around and looked Will up and down, taking in his rumpled shirt and sweatpants. “No, I can fetch the supplies and bring them here, if you like. I want to show you something when we’re done. I wasn’t expecting you to be awake this early, but now that you are it seems as fitting a time as any.”

Will tilted his head and sat back down on the bed. “Show me what?”

“All in good time,” Hannibal responded offhandedly. “I’ll be right back.” With that, he left the room, leaving Will alone with his thoughts in the process.

Now that he had nothing but the dim light of the morning and his aching shoulder to keep him company, Will found himself experiencing an unsettling division of unease and acceptance. Hannibal was right. What was happening between them did toe the line of inevitability. There had always been an undercurrent of desire in every interaction they had ever had. Desire to know, desire to see, desire to feel. Whatever the desire had been for, it was always there.

Once again, Will found himself trapped in the paradox of feeling guilty that he wasn’t feeling guilty. By all rights, he should be doubting himself. He should be uncertain about how easy it was to kiss Hannibal—to touch him—but he wasn’t. It was as instinctive as their conversations. As soon as Will had taken that first stride into the unknown, he had fallen into step without a second thought. Each and every progression between the two of them seemed earth-shattering when it happened, but so utterly and unyieldingly _natural_ once the moment passed. It was reflexive. His muscles were remembering something they had never experienced and acting as though they had been there a thousand times.

Touching Hannibal should have felt wrong, somehow. But no. Instead, it felt unavoidable.

Thankfully, Hannibal returned before Will could lose himself completely in the maze of his own thoughts, medical kit in hand. For the first time that morning, Will noticed the other man was still dressed in his sleep wear.

“You wear matching pajamas like a kid.”

Hannibal froze mid-movement as he was sitting down on the bed next to Will, recovering quickly and continuing about his business. He was sitting a little straighter now. If Will had wanted to risk getting his shoulder hit again, he would have called it prim.

“Would you prefer I wear a nightgown?”

Will spluttered at the unexpected response. “I—no, please don’t.” At Hannibal’s unimpressed eyebrow, he raised his hands in apology. “I wasn’t criticizing. To be honest, I think those suit you.” He grimaced and looked away. “But does that mean I woke you up? You haven’t even had a chance to change.”

“I am an early riser, so it was no trouble, Will,” Hannibal replied amiably, gesturing for Will to remove his shirt.

Will did so with some effort. His shoulder really was feeling stiff. Hannibal couldn’t have possibly pressed it that hard. Had he been overworking himself the past few days? “It feels tight,” he said through gritted teeth. “Like my muscles are cramping.”

Hannibal made a sound and reached out, pressing firm fingers into Will’s arm and shoulder blade. “You’re tense, but nothing unusual. What you’re likely feeling is a combination of aftershock from the pressure I applied and the muscles beginning to knit themselves back together. Your shoulder will feel this way for quite some time.” Carefully, he unwrapped the bandages and removed the gauze. “The draining is significantly less. I’d prefer if you stopped using your right arm so much for at least a few days.”

“That’s easier said than done.” Will sighed as Hannibal ran a cool antiseptic swab over the wound. This routine of theirs had become something of a relaxing time for Will. Hannibal’s hand gentle on his arm, his touches precise and experienced, the soft sighs as he inspected the progress of Will’s healing. “I use my right arm for practically everything. I forget.”

“I could make you a sling if it would help you to become more conscious of it,” Hannibal suggested. He placed a square of gauze against Will’s shoulder. “I’m going to wrap it loosely today to give the air a chance to do your skin some good. It’s unwise to go too long without letting the body breathe. Perhaps tomorrow you could forgo the bandage entirely, though I must insist you stay inside if you do.”

“You insist a lot of things, you know,” Will quipped, easing back into his shirt. “What did you want to show me?”

Hannibal gathered up his things and stood. “Put on some warm clothes. It’s rather cold outside this morning.”

“We’re going outside? It can’t even be six yet.”

“Any later and I will not be able to show you, Will.” Hannibal paused halfway out the door. “Allow me to surprise you.”

Will made a face and his nose twitched. “Your surprises don’t always end well.”

Hannibal blinked and nodded. “Be that as it may, I assure you there is nothing you will find unpleasant about this excursion, save for the cold if you do not dress appropriately. Meet me downstairs in five minutes.” And he turned on his heel and left.

“Well, alright then,” Will grumbled to himself. “The great Hannibal Lecter has spoken.” He waved his left hand in the air in a slightly maniacal display and generally excessive flourish before catching how ridiculous he was being and dropping it back down to his side. With a slight shake of his head, he shuffled around until he found a halfway decent sweater that he had bought and the overly luxurious overcoat that Hannibal had bought for him and tugged them both on. After an abnormally difficult struggle with finding his left shoe—which had somehow ended up halfway under the bed—Will was trudging his way down the stairs.

Hannibal was already there, dressed and ready to go as though he hadn’t been head to toe in matching pajamas five minutes earlier.

Will gawked at him. “I barely had time to put on a sweater and you’re already decked to the nines?” Will rolled his eyes. “How? Are you magic? Is that what this is?”

Hannibal gave him an odd look. “Perhaps I should have let you sleep longer, Will.”

Will made an undignified sound at that and quickly realized that yes, Hannibal probably should have let him sleep longer. Well, what’s done is done. He was up now. Before he could bluster himself through any more absurd one-liners, he quickly ended the conversation. “Show me what you wanted to show me.”

Acceding, Hannibal opened the door and led the way, walking purposefully onto the gravel and towards the forest. The man’s gait was so intent that Will had to struggle for a moment to keep up with him and simultaneously combat the freezing chill of the morning hitting his face and making his nose numb. When they reached the forest, Hannibal took a sharp detour in a direction Will hadn’t been before.

“Where are we going?”

Hannibal turned towards Will and held a finger to his lips. “We’re almost there,” he whispered. “Walk quietly.”

Genuinely intrigued for the first time, Will obeyed and began to measure his steps, careful not to step on leaves and twigs if he didn’t have to. He had hunted before. He knew how to be silent in the woods.

It wasn’t long before they reached a small clearing and Hannibal held out his arm, stopping them in their tracks. Slowly, he crouched down and pulled Will alongside him.

Will frowned and looked around the clearing. There was nothing there.

Hannibal saw his expression and smiled, leaning over until his lips brushed Will’s ear. “We have made it in time. They’ll join us soon.”

Will shut his eyes and shivered as Hannibal’s warm breath ghosted over his ear and the side of his neck. The contrast to the chill of the air was stark. For the longest time, he kept his eyes shut and savored the moment. He could hear the rustling of the leaves overhead, the steady breathing of Hannibal against his cheek, and the birds as they began to wake up from a long night. He wondered how someone who had brought him so much chaos and melancholy could also bring him such a keen and distinct feeling of tranquility.

“They?”

“Yes. Them.” And Hannibal nudged for Will to open his eyes and look.

Will bit his lip to hold back a gasp. In the clearing that had been empty only moments before, there now stood a stag. It was as majestic a beast as he had ever seen, standing tall and proud in the pale glow of the early sun, its antlers soft and strong. Two does were nearby, nervously glancing over and Hannibal and Will and edging their way onto the grass. The stag seemed unperturbed by their presence and Will wondered just how many times Hannibal had come here in the morning; sitting and watching.

“How is it,” Will asked almost inaudibly. “That someone like you, who revels in the dramatic and the pandemonium of the world, can find yourself in a place like this? A moment like this one?” Will took in a short breath and watched as the smaller doe tiptoed closer to them, curious and wary. “Are they equal to you? Both the bedlam and the serenity?” He glanced sideways only to find that Hannibal was still looking at him, blind to the clearing and its animals.

“I find that beauty takes endless shapes.” Hannibal reached up a hand and trailed his knuckle over Will’s eyebrow and down the side of his face. “To limit oneself to the appreciation of a limited scope is a disservice to yourself and those around you.” He looked away to the deer and, much to Will’s astonishment, slowly began to rise and walk forward.

Will reached out as if to stop him. “What are you doing?”

Hannibal paid him no mind. “I have spent our time here introducing myself to these creatures. As I said, I am an early riser. One must find some way to pass the mornings in such a place.” He gave Will a reassuring nod and approached the doe. She twitched, but didn’t run. “They know me and have no reason to be afraid.” He gradually stretched his arm out until he could rest his palm on her back. Will watched, fascinated by how her muscles shivered and snapped elastically back into place.

“Come, Will. Say hello to her.”

Will’s eyes widened and he stayed where he was. “I don’t want to frighten her. I’m good with animals, Hannibal, but not deer. I’ve hunted them, not pet them.”

Hannibal’s posture shifted slightly. “And in what world do you live that you cannot befriend that which you hunt?”

The reality of the statement hit Will hard. That was their life, wasn’t it? No true difference between friend or foe. That was Hannibal’s world. To him, everyone was as equally prone to become prey as they were to earn his friendship. And Hannibal’s friendship only lasted until those friends became his prey. It was cyclical. It was a world of equality in the respect that anyone and everyone had an equal chance to live or die.

Except Will, it seemed.

Will’s eyes were glued to Hannibal’s hand on the doe, watching it as it gently stroked the fur. The doe was so trusting; still and calm. All it would take was one simple movement, one flickering change of intention, and she could die right now at Hannibal’s hands. It would be so easy for him in that moment to take her life. In her unexpecting trust, she’d likely not even feel it.

Shakily, Will got his feet and stepped cautiously forward. The doe eyed him but didn’t turn to run. She was trusting him by proxy. Will pitied her and his eyes burned. He reached out towards her and allowed a weak smile as she timidly pressed her wet nose up into his palm.  Trying to exude a sense of mellow calm as best he could, he moved his hand up over her head and felt the velvet softness of her ears, the coarse short hairs on her neck, and flinched when one of her ears flicked against his wrist.

“I feel sorry for her.” He knew Hannibal was looking at him. He decided to keep his eyes on the deer. “She trusts us so completely right now, but we are both entirely capable of doing her harm. She has no idea.”

“That is the nature of humanity, in part,” Hannibal replied. His voice had a contemplative tone to it like he was trying to figure out what was going on in Will’s head. “The ability to damage those around us and the choice of whether or not to do so. We are predators as a species, Will.”

“Then why pet her at all?” Will frowned when she nuzzled his hand again. She was so warm and gentle. It made him feel terribly wistful. “If we are predators, why make an effort to befriend the prey?”

“To embrace your nature as a predator is not to throw your force in every direction compulsively and without purpose. There is a distinct difference between zeal and zealoutry.”

“What if I’m unable to accept the distinctions? What if I see them as the same?”

Hannibal paused, his hand resting solidly on the doe’s back. “Speak your mind, Will.”

Will sighed and moved his gaze to Hannibal. He examined his face—the lines, the shadows, the shade of morning stubble—as he mulled over his words. “This house, this place.” His lifted his hand from the deer and gestured around them. “This is all one big clearing in a forest. Here things are peaceful and gentle and calm. _You_ are  peaceful and gentle and calm.” He dropped his eyes to stare at Hannibal’s coat buttons. “But when we leave, we leave that isolated bubble. We leave the clearing.”

“You are concerned that you are deluding yourself into believing you will be as comfortable alongside me out there as you are here,” Hannibal spoke the words carefully as he processed Will’s words. It was the way he spoke when he was putting the puzzle pieces of Will’s scattered thoughts together for him. “Should I take a life, you fear you will lose this sense of calm.”

“It’s rational.” Will felt like he was defending himself. Maybe he was.

“You told me that your attempts to rationalize were the thing making this struggle so profound for you.”

“Rationalization is necessary to make competent choices.”

“Rationalization is necessary to make excuses,” Hannibal countered easily. “You feel compelled to find an excuse as to why you are making the wrong choice. Doubt is an insidious weed that grows along the roots of the mind. It is difficult to wrench from its grasp.”

Will looked up again. He could see his own reflection in Hannibal’s dark eyes. “For once, you’re wrong.”

Hannibal’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?”

“Oh.” Will smiled and rubbed his eyes. “I’m not trying to find an excuse to justify how I’m making the wrong choice. I am not afraid to see you kill again. I know it will happen. I fully expect it to. I’m just worried that I won’t be able to…” He groaned and rubbed his eyes again, blinking away the white spots from his vision when he pressed too hard. “What if I can’t make those distinctions myself? Would you be content to have a bystander? That’s all Bedelia was to you, right? A useless, manipulated observer. I don’t want to be that. I can’t.”

“Will.” Hannibal’s hand left the deer and she skittered to the other side of the clearing. Reaching up, he placed his palms on either side of Will’s face. “There is no comparison between you and Bedelia. I will make no attempts to lie and say I don’t wish for you to stand alongside me one day. To see your eyes, feral and wild as I know they can be. To see you feel the true strength and grace that I know you possess. I desire few things more.”

He stroked a thumb over Will’s cheekbone. “But were I never to see that moment, I have no difficulty saying that I would be content simply for your company. You are magnificent in more than one form, Will, no matter which form you choose to take.”

Will laughed and closed his eyes. “And you said I’m a romantic? There’s no way I could even compete with you.” He took Hannibal by the wrists and pulled his hands away, stepping back and looking him in the eyes. “And if I told you someone was off limits?”

Hannibal’s eyes grew shuttered. “I made a promise to Alana—“

“I know you did. I’m not referring to her. We can revisit that later.” The look the crossed Hannibal’s countenance suggested that it wouldn’t be a pleasant conversation, but Will bypassed it and kept talking. “In general. If we meet someone and I like them and I say that they’re off limits?”

Hannibal’s jaw worked and the muscles ticked. He shifted on his feet slightly. “And if you decide you like the whole city, Will?”

Will looked up at the sky and tried again. “I’m not making a Devil’s bargain here, Hannibal. I’m talking about individuals. If there’s someone I’d rather you spare, are you willing to consider it?” He held up his hand before the other man could speak. “And by consider it, I mean more than just give it a moment’s pause and then kill them anyway. I mean serious discussion. I mean you allowing your mind to change if it’s been set.”

“And if I will not change it?”

“You’re being stubborn,” Will growled, kicking the leaves at his feet. One of the deer startled and Will immediately sent them an apologetic look even though they couldn’t understand it. He calmed himself down. “I’m asking you for compromise. I’m asking for the comfort that I can know you will attempt to accommodate my needs as much as I will accommodate yours.”

The fight in Hannibal’s figure slipped away slightly at that and he stared on in interest. “How do you intend to accommodate me?”

“I already told you that I expect you to kill. I won’t stop you unless I feel I absolutely have to.” Will heard the words coming out of his mouth as though they belonged to someone else. He was forced to physically take a step back from himself and listen to the moment on replay in his mind. That, beyond all things, was something he knew without a moment’s hesitation was supposed to make him feel wicked and wrong. He had just told Hannibal he would let him kill—that he wouldn’t mind. And his heart hadn’t skipped a beat, his words hadn’t faltered, his voice hadn’t quavered.

Hannibal’s voice picked up over his musings. “I find myself in near constant wonder at how often you are surprised by your own words.”

“You and me both,” Will muttered. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“I cannot say for certain that we will always agree, but yes, I am willing to take your opinions into consideration in the future.”

Will shot Hannibal a dubious look. “That’s shaky at best.”

“I am not saying this lightly, I assure you.”

“No, I know that.”

“But you are not convinced.”

“You know, Hannibal.” Will looked around the forest and took in a breath so deep that the cold stung his lungs. “I don’t think we are going to be able to figure absolutely everything out right off the bat. Talk about overzealous.”

Hannibal took a few steps forward, stopping close enough that Will could see the flecks of red in his irises. “And you are satisfied leaving room for such unknowns?”

Will reached up and smoothed out the lapels on Hannibal’s jacket. “Absolutely every aspect of the future is unknown. What the hell is the point of trying to predict it? Wasn’t getting caught up in expectations what made it so hard for us to get here in the first place?” Before they could drag the conversation out any longer, Will tugged his overcoat closer to his body and turned around. “Let’s get back inside. It’s cold.”

When he received no argument, he began walking back to the house. It wasn’t until they were halfway to the front steps that he spoke again. “Thank you for taking me there, by the way. I know it may not have seemed like it, but I did enjoy it.”

After a beat. “You are quite welcome, Will.”

Will was tempted to comment on how often Hannibal ended sentences with his name, but he decided against it. In all honesty, he enjoyed it. It made it seem as though everything Hannibal said was tailored specifically for him. He supposed, in a way, it was.

The day was surprisingly simple after that and then it bled into the next day and then the next. Their routine hadn’t changed much save for the little, building moments of touch that they would exchange in passing. The way Hannibal would slip his hand along the back of Will’s neck as he passed by or how Will would find himself leaning into Hannibal as they walked or sat next to one another on the couch.

It was a gradual thing, how touched worked its way into their schedules like it had always been there. Will would press his palm up against Hannibal’s lower back when the man was at the stove and watch him shiver. Hannibal would lean his face into Will’s neck sometimes, breathing him in and placing a barely-there kiss behind his ear before walking away.

They would always pull away too soon, never linger for too long, keep the touch just this side of soft and unobtrusive. It wasn’t that they were being avoidant. Far from it. There were times when they would cross that line before reeling back completely. Hannibal was always the one to instigate those moments and Will repeatedly found himself caught in the hurricane of his sudden attention.

The first time, Hannibal had cornered him one evening when he was leaving the bathroom and heading to bed. The man had shoved Will up against the wall before he’d even known what hit him and kissed him senseless for a good five minutes before heading off to his own room like nothing had happened, leaving Will to sulk off to bed with one hell of a hard-on.

The next day, Hannibal struck again. This time Will had been cleaning some dishes in the sink. Next thing he knew, a body was pressed along his back and there was a mouth on his neck and one or two dishes might have broken that day. But once again, Hannibal ended up leaving him high and, well, covered in dish soap, disappearing as quickly as he had shown up.

These moments were punctuated by a consistent normality. Will’s shoulder was beginning to heal and the house was mostly clean now, save for the places neither of them ever bothered to venture. They would spend their nights talking and their afternoons keeping to themselves and sometimes they would go for walks together or return to the lake. Once they had opted to go into town together, each needing things they didn’t feel like asking the other to get for them.

That trip, Hannibal’s hand had been on Will’s thigh the entire drive into town, sliding higher and higher until it reached the point that Will was forced to sit in the car for a good twenty minutes once they reached town just so he could calm down. The drive back, Hannibal hadn’t touched him at all and Will damn near smacked him.

They were changing the bandages less, which was a small mercy for Will considering during one such session Hannibal had gotten distracted from redressing his wound and found instead that sucking marks all over Will’s chest would be a more productive use of his time. After that, Will got hard every time Hannibal changed his stupid bandage.

Needless to say, Will was beginning to get a bit irked.

Over a week passed like that before he lost his patience.

Naturally, rather than do the adult thing and tell Hannibal he was frustrating him, Will chose to frustrate him back.

In hindsight, maybe he hadn’t thought the plan through.

The best thing about hindsight was that it didn’t come until later, so Will didn’t have to deal with it yet.

The idea had been a simple one, sprouting like a devious little seed in his head. Will would avoid even the most simple touches. If Hannibal thought he could have at Will whenever he wanted and then wander off, then Will wouldn’t let him have anything at all. Instead, he would do what Hannibal had been doing—work the other man up and traipse off without a care. Two could play at that game.

He thought about how the purpose of their stay at the estate seemed to have transformed into an entirely different one. Where at first he had been deciding whether or not to stay at all, now they were deciding how to coexist with one another in more ways than one. They were still learning how to talk openly, each getting stuck in moments of shock at what the other person had said or hesitation to say something themselves. It was a bizarre limbo to be dancing in. Despite having come to a tentative sort of accord and mutual decision, they found they were now faced with something far more complicated.

What came _after_ the decision.

It had taken them so long to lead up to the position they had found themselves in; both willing to be in the same place at the same time for the same reasons. Now that they had reached that pinnacle, they were left to decide where to go from there. In the first days of their stay, Will had considered the possibility that his decision on whether or not to stay with Hannibal would end one story and begin another. It seemed that though he was right, neither of them was entirely certain which story to start.

There was no simmering regret or discontent holding them back. The estate was too isolated for that. They were still in their shell of solitude, content to live in a world away from the world until they were ready to reemerge once more. When they walked down the front steps for the last time and kept on going, what was made of them in this place would follow with them.

Neither of them broached the subject of leaving. It was as though a tacit agreement had been struck that they weren’t quite ready—that it wasn’t quite time.

Will wondered if perhaps he was eager to press Hannibal’s buttons simply to spur a reaction and knock them out of this stagnation. It wasn’t that the stagnation was an unpleasant one, but he knew they couldn’t stay here forever. They would have to leave eventually. Something had to give.

If testing the newest dynamic of their relationship was a way to accomplish that, so be it.

Or maybe Will was just beginning to go slightly insane with boredom and unresolved tension and needed something irresponsible to do.

The first day his plan had gone rather well, all things considered. He’d gotten his first chance after breakfast when Hannibal had moved himself into the sitting room to read a book. Will had leaned over the back of the armchair and murmured a question about the book right into the other man’s ear. When Hannibal had answered, appearing entirely apathetic towards Will’s proximity, Will had pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the curve of Hannibal’s jaw and dodged back just as the man had reached up to tangle a hand in his air. He’d hurried out of the room with some excuse about needing a walk and counted the moment as his first victory.

Really, he knew he was being callow, but if there was one thing that was true about Will it was that when he had convinced himself of an idea, he saw it through. Hell, he had sailed across an entire fucking ocean on little more than an idea. This wasn’t any different.

He just hoped this particular journey was at least vaguely less miserable.

The second opportunity may have backfired on him a little. Later that evening found Hannibal washing dishes after their supper and Will felt a tangible urge to get revenge for what had happened a few days previous. He didn’t bother trying to sneak up on the older man. Hannibal could likely smell him even over the soap of the water and fading aromas of their meal. Sure enough, Hannibal spoke when Will was about to reach him.

“Was there something you needed, Will?” He continued scrubbing at a plate.

Will hesitated for a breath before steeling himself and wrapping his arms around Hannibal’s middle. He scowled into the man’s shoulders when he didn’t so much as pause at the contact, continuing to scrub away. “Nothing. I just wanted to thank you for dinner.”

Hannibal’s voice was entirely collected when he replied. “I am always happy to cook for you, Will.”

Will grunted and leaned up a bit. Though Hannibal wasn’t much taller than him, he felt the height difference making itself known at their current angle. Daringly, he pressed his lips against the back of Hannibal’s neck. “Can we have pasta tomorrow?”

This time, Hannibal did pause. Slowly, he set aside the dish he was holding and placed his hands on the edge of the sink. “If you would like.”

A little voice inside Will’s head was screaming at him—asking when in the hell he had become so bold—but it was drowned out by the triumph of gaining Hannibal’s unadulterated attention. He moved his mouth to the side of Hannibal’s neck and bit down gently. “I’d like that.”

Hannibal made a sound so quiet that Will could barely make it out at all. “What precisely are you doing, Will, if I might ask?” He didn’t sound bothered, merely curious.

“I’m asking about dinner,” Will responded simply, biting down again and using his tongue to smooth out the skin when he let go.

And that was when the moment got away from him. Just as his fingers slid over Hannibal’s belly and between the buttons of his pristine shirt, Hannibal groaned. A rush of dizziness briefly robbed Will of his purpose and he breathed hard into Hannibal’s neck when the other man shifted—

—and ground his ass back into Will’s hips.

Blinking wildly, Will gripped at Hannibal’s shirt, rucking it up, and drew one long sucking mark against Hannibal’s neck before remembering why he was there and all but ripping himself away.

“I’m getting an early night,” he rasped. He shook his head and forcibly stilled his voice. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Once Will had reached his room, he ran a hand through his scraggly hair and decided that maybe that could have gone a little better. Even when Will thought he held all the cards, Hannibal still managed to gain the upper hand. Will reached down to the front of his trousers and gripped himself hard, trying to calm down or ease the pressure or _something._

This entire ordeal was like an out of body experience. He and Hannibal were always prone to circling one another like animals waiting to take the lunge. For them, a game had always tinted the edges of their interaction and spidered webs into their existence. Where once their game had conjured images of blood and fists and who would kill the other first, the game had now taken on a new tone.

Oddly, Will found that it didn’t feel all that different. Even when he hadn’t been sure if Hannibal was going to take his life or if he would give in to the temptation to take Hannibal’s, he had never felt unease in their competition. If anything, he felt enticed. That was at the very core of their relationship; a tantalizing allure of who would strike first. Though the rules had changed, the game had not. And Will knew without a moment’s hesitation that once this game reached its conclusion, they would find another.

The thought held a peculiar comfort to it. It was like a promise that there would always be something to bind them, to keep them eager, to provide them with a reason to stay.

Hannibal had said weeks ago that he couldn’t envision a time where he could fully predict Will. Will could say the same in return. Whatever he had anticipated in coming to Europe and finding Hannibal, never in a thousand years could he have predicted this outcome.

A change in boundaries, borders, and motives. At first they had tested the limits of each other’s resolve. Now they were testing—what was it they were testing? Patience? Endurance? Control?

Will didn’t know for sure, but he had no desire to stop.

If there was one thing he could always expect from Hannibal, it was that the older man would always give him a reason to keep moving forward. He would always give Will a reason to want more, forgo standing still, be unsatisfied with remaining complacent.

For whatever else the man had put him through, Will had to at least give him that.

The next day, Will’s game was a remarkably easy one. He spent the entire afternoon brushing past Hannibal at random intervals. A touch to his wrist as he reached for something, a stroke of his thigh as he settled down to sit next to him, leaning into his space as he passed him by in the hall. The entire time, Hannibal watched him with analytical eyes. He knew Will was up to something. That much was clear, but he did nothing to stop him and didn’t speak a word of it.

It was day three when Will almost lost grip on the reigns again.

Will had been sitting on the stool in the kitchen after breakfast, sipping at his coffee and thumbing through a book he had plucked from one of the rooms. Without warning, two arms grabbed him and spun him around in his seat. And then there was Hannibal, standing between his legs and smirking down at him from mere inches away.

Will swallowed and tenaciously refused to waver, looking Hannibal dead in the eyes and giving him a relaxed smile. “Yes, Hannibal?” His back was digging into the counter and Hannibal’s hands were on his hips. He had to turn this situation in his favor quickly before it got out of hand.

Hannibal’s smirk remained steadfast and he stepped forward, pressing their lower bodies together from hip to stomach. “Did you enjoy the pasta last night, Will?”

Will groaned inwardly. Hannibal was challenging him. He was making it clear he knew Will’s angle and was accepting the contest. “You know I did. I told you last night—ah!” He bit his lip when Hannibal blatantly shifted his weight, making it seem like the way they subsequently rubbed together was an accident. Will was no Hannibal, but he was proud of himself for how quickly he recovered. “Why do you ask?”

Hannibal quirked an amused brow down at him. “You seemed quite eager to request a dish before.” He shifted again and Will’s eyes fluttered. “I wanted to ask you if you had any particular requests for tonight.” His hands tightened on Will’s hips and Will wondered if he was even talking about food. Honestly, the answer could have easily gone either way.

“I’m fine with whatever you want,” Will replied. His eyes widened briefly when Hannibal’s hands only tightened further. It was now or never. He had to do something or Hannibal was going to win this round. Irrationally panicked at the idea of losing, Will did one of the only things he was capable of doing in such a position. Reaching out, He tugged Hannibal’s shirt out of his waistband and slid his hands up under the fabric.

If the narrowing of Hannibal’s eyes and the parting of his lips were anything to go by, the taller man hadn’t been expecting that.

Will bit the inside of his cheek as he felt the curves of Hannibal’s stomach and the firm muscles of his chest. He slid his fingers through soft chest hair and dipped his fingertip between collarbones before sliding back down. This was more than he had ever touched Hannibal before. It was a lot to take in.

When his pinky slid over the bump of a nipple, he had the urge to pinch it just to see what would happen. So he did.

With a sharp intake of breath, Hannibal leaned forward, going for a kiss. For a split second, Will almost let him, but this was his chance. With one last roll of the nub between his fingers, he quickly slipped his hands out from under Hannibal’s shirt and used the other man’s distraction to quickly slip off the stool and away from him.

Really, with that victory solidly in hand, Will should have just left the room. He should have, but instead he made the mistake of turning around and looking back.

Hannibal was still standing at the stool, his shirt hanging half out of his slacks and his face dark and flushed. The sight almost made Will run into the damn wall. For a second, he froze as Hannibal looked at him, eyes bright and challenge eager and ready in his face.

Not for the first time, Will wondered if he had bitten off more than he could chew. Because now Hannibal was actively playing the game.

And Will would be a shitty liar if he said that didn’t intimidate him just a little bit.

They continued on like that for two days. Will almost lost their tempestuous tango more than once, but he had managed to recover in the nick of time in every instance except for one. That particular instance found him with his back on the couch one evening with Hannibal moving lazily on top of him and kissing him until he couldn’t breathe. It was only once Will was right on the cusp of giving up completely that Hannibal had pulled away and left the room with what Will felt like was an excessively haughty grin.

Despite the air of challenge that permeated the estate, there was a definite tone of exploration to it all. The physical aspect of their companionship was a new one. It was unfamiliar territory for both of them, but it wasn’t until late the second night that Will discovered just how unfamiliar it was.

They were seated on opposite ends of the couch, a glass of scotch in Will’s hand and a fire roaring under the hearth. Will had his back turned against the arm of the couch and was tiredly watching Hannibal sketch in a notepad he had bought on their last trip into town. It was then that the thought occurred to him. “This is different for you, isn’t it?”

“Hm?” Hannibal didn’t looked up, knowing full well Will would say whatever he was thinking. He thumbed an errant line of charcoal and kept sketching.

Will sipped at his scotch. “You’ve had sexual relationships before.” He winced and viciously forced the image of Alana out of his head. He didn’t want to think about that. He never wanted to think about that. “But never…” He gestured between them with his hand.

Hannibal looked over and frowned, setting his sketchbook down in his lap. “I have had sex with men before, Will.”

Will spluttered into his drink and laughed. “No, that’s not what I meant. At all.”

Hannibal’s brows furrowed and loosened. “Ah, you mean a romantic relationship.”

Will made a face and looked into the fire. “I wouldn’t call this romantic.”

“What would you call it, then?”

“I haven’t decided that yet,” Will answered openly. “But I guess that’s the general idea of what I’m asking. You have had sex with plenty of people, I’m sure.” He shrugged and looked back at Hannibal. “But it’s always served a purpose before, I’m assuming. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong.”

Hannibal pursed his lips and put some thought to the words. “You’re not wrong. My sexual encounters previously have always been to achieve an end. Whether it was to satisfy a simple desire or further a particular strategy.”

“Which was Alana?” So apparently Will wasn’t avoiding the subject after all. He wanted to kick himself.

Hannibal was quiet for a long moment, his gaze searching. “Do you truly wish for an answer to that?”

Will felt a sharp sting in his chest, but he nodded anyway. “Yeah.”

Hannibal nodded and looked into the fire. “Alana was a means to an end. She was, ultimately, an alibi. I found her desirable as well, but without the need for an alibi I would have had no compulsion to act on that desire.”

“Are you sure part of that compulsion wasn’t to spite me?” Will couldn’t help but ask. He had to know. A haunting image of Hannibal smirking at him while he sat in a cell crowded his vision.

“It was…” Hannibal trailed off and tapped his sketchbook. “Petty of me, but yes. I confess there have been moments in regards to you where my behavior was less than what I wished it to be.”

Will snorted. “No argument from me.”

Hannibal glanced over at him. “Do you find that you still resent me for that time?”

“What?” The thought hadn’t even occurred to Will. It felt like a lifetime ago—ghosts that had long-since faded away into weathered memories. They would always be there, but they were timestamps. “Maybe I should, but no. No, I don’t.”

Hannibal seemed satisfied with the response. “Why have you asked me about this?”

“Oh.” Will finished off his scotch and leaned over to set the glass on the coffee table. His shoulder twinged a bit at the movement. “I guess I’m just wondering how this is for you. You and me, I mean. You’ve always gone into anything physical with someone for a purpose. With a motive. But this time—“

“This time I actually share a legitimate connection with the other person, yes?” Hannibal offered. “Is that what you’re asking me? How this differs from my previous encounters?”

“I suppose that’s the gist of it, yes.”

With a shift so that he was facing Will more clearly, Hannibal crossed his legs and set the sketchbook aside. “I find myself viewing even the briefest of our interactions to be vastly more stimulating that my past encounters,” he said, smiling faintly at the flush of Will’s face. “As I find myself with no ultimate motive, it has become increasingly easy for me to allow myself to simply desire you. I do not desire you to achieve an end or to obtain gratification for my own purposes. I desire you because I desire you.”

“Sounds a bit redundant.” Will threw out the taunt in an effort to cover up his own reaction to the words. He should have been ready for Hannibal to be so straight forward about it all, but how was someone supposed to react when another person told them point blank that they desired them so completely?

“Really? I find it enchanting.”

Will gave Hannibal a look. “You’re getting all poetic again.”

Hannibal raised his palms in apology, but Will didn’t think he looked all that apologetic. “And what of you, Will? Does this differ from your past experiences?”

Will let out a bark of a laugh at that. “Really? You have to ask that?” He rolled his eyes at Hannibal’s nonplussed expression. “Oh, honestly. Of course it’s different. With everyone I’ve been with in the past, and may I remind you that it’s a significantly small number, it’s always been uncomfortable and forced and my mind was just exploding the whole time with… with _them._ ”

“Your empathy made it difficult for those connections to fulfill you.”

Will frowned and stared at his hands. “That and people always viewed me as unstable. I’ve never been particularly charismatic or friendly, Hannibal. That isn’t a trait I developed later in life. I’ve always been that way and it’s always caused problems in my relationships.”

“If others were so despairingly unable to see your finer qualities, they are the ones who are to suffer the loss from such blindness,” Hannibal stated.

“Maybe you see more in me than is actually there,” Will retorted, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning into the cushions. “Have you ever considered that?”

“It doesn’t do for you to be self-deprecating here, Will,” Hannibal replied, barely even batting an eye. “I have waded into the deep of your mind. I have seen what lives there.” He smiled. “I have not been disappointed.”

Will’s head lolled to the side, leaning on the back of the couch as he stared back. “You’re the only one.”

“A fact for which I am selfishly pleased.”

“You’re awfully possessive, you know.”

“I never claimed not to be.”

Will didn’t see any reason to reply to that, breathing slowly through his nose and watching Hannibal from across the couch. With the barest of smiles, he shut his eyes and breathed deeply once more. After what seemed like an endless time listening to the crackle of the fire and the renewed scratch of charcoal and paper, he fell asleep.

When he woke, the fire had burned down to embers and he was covered by a thick knitted blanket he had never seen before. Paranoid it was a remnant of the estate, he stiffed at the fabric and sighed with relief when it smelled clean rather than musty. Rubbing his eyes, he sat up and cracked his back, standing to pad over the window and pull aside the curtains. It was still dark outside, but barely. He could spot the sun just beginning to make its way back into the sky. So he had slept on the couch all night, then.

He was surprised Hannibal hadn’t woken him or taken him upstairs, but apparently Hannibal had thought he needed the sleep more than the change in location.

Now that he was awake, Will saw no point trying to go back to bed. Squinting his eyes in the dull light of an approaching dawn, he shuffled down the hall until he found a bathroom. He took his time washing up. Though the house was always quiet, there seemed to be an extra layer of stillness so early in the morning, as if the world itself had yet to wake up.

Will felt surrounded by silence and it made him move lethargically.

Eventually, he made his way to the kitchen, only to stop short when he caught sight of a figure in the dining room. Perplexed, he stepped into the room.

Hannibal was sitting in slacks and a dark maroon sweater, a cup of coffee in one hand and a book in the other. The only source of light in the room was a flickering candle on the table and the sparing glow coming from the window. Will cleared his throat and he looked up from his book.

“Ah, Will. This is quite early for you to be up.”

Will grunted and made his way over, sitting on the corner of the table next to Hannibal’s chair rather than pulling out his own. “I think my body wasn’t used to sleeping on a couch.”

Hannibal frowned. “I hadn’t wanted to disturb you. You seemed quite tired.”

So Will’s assumption had been right, after all. “No, it’s fine. I’m not sore or anything. Just didn’t sleep as long.” He glanced at the candle and the meager plate of toast and jam. “Going for minimalist today?”

Hannibal followed his gaze. “I quite enjoy the calm of early mornings. I have no desire to spoil it with false light. As for the toast, I eat breakfast with you and have no desire to spoil my appetite.”

Will blinked at how terribly considerate the last comment was. “Oh.”

Hannibal began to sit up, placing his coffee and book on the table. “Would you like me to get you something to eat?”

“No.” Will shook his head. His mind was still in a bit of a fog. Whether it was from the fact that he was still waking up, the atmosphere of the morning, or Hannibal’s discreetly attentive comment about breakfast, he wasn’t sure. He looked at the man in front of him and worried his lower lip for a moment. “I wouldn’t mind a kiss, though.”

No matter how prepared Hannibal always appeared to be for each and every circumstance, he never failed to look surprised whenever Will asked him so directly for a kiss. It was as though every time Will asked—the amount of which could be counted on one hand—Hannibal had to process that the concept of Will asking at all was even a possibility. Every single time, the request seemed spotlessly _new_ to him.

And every time Will saw that look on his face, he just wanted to kiss him more.

When Hannibal failed to reply, Will smiled. “Is that a yes or a no?”

Slowly, Hannibal stood from his chair and got in Will’s space, crowding him up against the table. “That is a request,” he placed his fingers under Will’s chin and lifted his head up. “That I will likely never say no to.”

“Get on with it, then,” Will breathed back, his smile loose and teasing.

Hannibal leaned down and pressed their lips together, barely a whisper of a touch. Again and again, he grazed, pulling and catching Will’s mouth with his own. His hands slid down Will’s back and over his sides and Will’s own arms found their way up to Hannibal’s neck to tangle fingers in his hair. The house was so absolutely static and motionless that Will could hear every breath and slip of skin.

Without meaning to, Will let off a little hum in the back of his throat and Hannibal responded to the noise by putting more force behind the kiss. And really, that was all it took. Just the slightest hint of added pressure and the axis of the whole room tilted. Before he knew it, Will was being hauled up onto the table and Hannibal was between his legs and sucking on his tongue and he vaguely heard the sound of dishes being pushed out of harm’s way.

Then Hannibal’s hands were on his legs, sliding up to his hips and pressing thumbs into the crease there before forcing his legs apart even more. Will cried out in surprise when Hannibal tugged and now they could _really_ feel each other.

Days upon days of tormenting one another were bludgeoning their way into one moment and Will wondered if Hannibal was going to pull away this time—if he was going to walk away again or expect Will to do the same. When Hannibal thrust their hips together again and curled his tongue into Will’s, Will realized he didn’t want to stop. Not again.

He pulled his head back and shuddered in a gasp of air. “Don’t stop this time. I don’t want you to.”

“Then I won’t,” came Hannibal’s equally breathless reply.

Will shivered at the sound of it and began unbuttoning Hannibal’s shirt before his mind could even process his hands were moving. He could barely fumble through the buttons properly. “Good.” He swallowed and moaned when Hannibal dove forward and began sucking hard at the side of his neck. For a second, his hands slipped off the buttons entirely and he was just gripping at the fabric and trying not to rip it. “Do you want me?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Hannibal growled into in skin, palming his hands up under Will’s shirt and pulling it over his head. He tossed it to the floor and Will had the uncanny urge to ask him why he hadn’t folded it before the mouth was on his throat now and thoughts were cast aside just as carelessly as the shirt.

Their mouths met again and it was wet and messy and Will was quickly losing all sense of time.

Then, out of nowhere, Hannibal pulled back. “Stay here.”

Confused and dizzy with want, Will opened his eyes and frowned. “What? Where are you going?”

Hannibal gripped his chin and ran a thumb over his lip before dipping it lewdly into Will’s mouth. Will’s cock throbbed from that action alone. “Wait here,” Hannibal repeated. “I won’t be gone long.”

And he was out of the room, leaving Will’s protests to fall on deaf ears.

At a loss for words, Will sat dumbly on the table for a moment, completely and utterly thrown. At first he thought that Hannibal had gone to grab something that might be, well, _necessary_ , but then two minutes had passed and he still wasn’t back. With a perplexed groan, Will slid off the table and went to stand by the window.

The combination of the cold air seeping through the glass onto his bare torso and another few minutes passing caused his erection to flag and he was just about to storm out of the room and demand to know what the hell was going on when he heard brisk steps behind him. He whirled around just in time to see Hannibal, shirt still completely untucked and half unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up and looking rumpled as all hell, toss a bottle of lube on the table.

Will looked on incredulously. “It took you that long to find—“

But Hannibal was shoving him up against the window and for one frantic, heart-rending moment Will thought the glass was going to break. Instead, Hannibal was hefting him up with hands on his backside and kissing him more roughly than he had ever kissed him before.

That was when Will learned that Hannibal could make him hard in approximately three seconds flat.

It was good information to store away for later.

Right now, though, Hannibal’s fingers were digging into his ass and he was carrying him back over to the table and Will could taste nothing but Hannibal, smell nothing but Hannibal, feel nothing but Hannibal. When Hannibal’s hands found the buttons of his trousers, Will short circuited. He jerked back from the kiss reflexively, unable to focus on both at once, and stared down as the man popped the button open and slid the zipper down so slowly it should have been a crime.

He felt a forehead nudge his own and he looked up to find a playful and hungry smile on Hannibal’s lips. His canines glistened and Will had the strange desire to lick them.

“Can I touch you, Will?” Hannibal’s voice was wrecked.

One of Will’s hands found a forearm and he gripped at the muscles like his life depended on it. “Yes.”

Hannibal’s grin widened and he leaned forward just enough to lick at Will’s lower lip before pulling away again. “Can I taste you, Will?”

“Oh god.” Will squeezed his eyes shut as he practically _felt_ the words. He tugged at Hannibal’s arm, urging him on. “Yes.”

With a sharp bite to Will’s lip, Hannibal yanked the smaller man’s trousers down just enough and no more. And it was all he needed to do, really, because Will’s cock was more than eager to leap out at the ready and ask for more. Hannibal didn’t even bother to take the clothes off all the way. Instead, one moment he was biting Will’s lip and the next he was on his knees and Will was fucking shouting because _fuck_ that mouth was _there_.

He buried one hand in Hannibal’s hair and the other pulled at the back of his neck. And Hannibal didn’t start slow, oh no. Will’s cock was hitting the back of his throat without so much as a warm-up and Will didn’t even bother wondering how that was possible because of course that was what Hannibal would do.

Will had been given good blowjobs before—some damn fine ones in fact—but whenever people talked about that one time, the mind-blowing one that they never forgot, he could never quite relate. Maybe it was because they had been waiting for so long that it was just a matter of principle now. If it wasn’t amazing, then what the hell had they been waiting for? But when Will looked down and saw Hannibal’s sandy hair at the same time he felt a tongue move just so, the near violent stab of pleasure he felt then told him all he needed to know.

This was Hannibal. This was _Hannibal._

This was the only person in the world who had touched the inside of his mind and found beauty there. He was the only person who had looked into Will’s eyes and seen more than darkness and broken pieces. He had seen universes.

This was Hannibal.

Will heard the rustle of clothing and Hannibal was moving, but his mouth never left him. He was too far gone to be able to tell what was happening. It was all he could do just to keep sitting up. He didn’t want to look away. He wanted to see him for every moment that he felt him. He didn’t want to forget who this was or what had brought him here.

Hannibal looked up. His pupils had devoured his irises and turned his gaze into the epitome of lust. When he saw the dark flush and overwhelmed expression on Will’s face, he moaned around his cock and Will’s body bowed from the sensation.

“Ah, fuck, Hannibal.” Will let out a harsh breath pressed his fingers against Hannibal’s scalp. He had never been particularly talkative during sex, but he had never been entirely quiet either. This, though, was something else entirely. This was too many years coming, too many looks that had never gone anywhere, too much.

Will’s eyes shot open almost comically wide when he was quite suddenly lifted off the table and dropped unceremoniously into the chair Hannibal had been sitting in earlier. Before his eyes could even catch up to the movement, he found himself quite inexplicably with a lap full of Hannibal. Mouth hanging open, he looked down and _oh._ Oh, that was unexpected.

Hannibal was completely bare from the waist down. His thighs were bracketing Will’s hips and Will felt his hands reflexively going to them and sliding over the warm skin. He could feel the weight of the other man bearing down on his legs and it drew his focus down further. There, right there rubbing up against him, was Hannibal’s cock, hard and hot and sticking out from between his shirttails because he still hadn’t managed to take the stupid shirt off and Will couldn’t believe this was actually happening.

Will’s hips shifted restlessly and his throat made a sound that was absolutely not a whine. “Jesus, Hannibal, do you actually want—“

“Yes.” Hannibal grabbed Will none too gently by the back of the head and pulled him back up to face him, renewing their kiss with a vigor.

Will groaned around his tongue. He could taste the sharp tang of his own pre-cum and the bitter of Hannibal’s coffee. He leaned forward to try to grab the lube off the table, holding Hannibal to him with his good arm, but he lost focus completely when the movement pressed Hannibal’s cock more firmly into his own and he was forced to bow his head against the other man’s shoulder just to get a hold of himself.

Thankfully, Hannibal grabbed it for him and Will choked on his own air when he felt a hand slicking him up and then heard the bottle being tossed aside. “W-wait, what about—“

“It didn’t take me six minutes to find a bottle, Will.” Hannibal’s voice was rough but amused and he pushed Will gently back into the chair, mindful of his shoulder.

Will blinked. “Oh.” And then he was treated once more to that smile—the smile before Hannibal’s mouth had been on him—and Hannibal was leaning forward again and looking him right in the eye.

“Will.” He dragged his lips along the side of Will’s face and nosed away the trickle of sweat that fell from his temple. “Can I feel you?”

Will’s hands jumped to Hannibal’s hips and for a moment he just dug in, feeling the flesh underneath his fingers and commanding his body with all the self-control he had left to calm down. After a lengthy, intense pause, he nodded. “Yes.”

Will had thought he was ready. He wasn’t.

When Hannibal lifted himself up and sat back down again after a few shifts and twists, he had seated himself fully in one fell swoop. Will’s vision went black. He felt Hannibal’s legs _shake_ , actually shake, under his palms and heard the ragged breathing in his ear. He felt the muscles clench and contract around his cock and tasted the salt of Hannibal’s skin as he turned to kiss his neck just so he would have something to distract him.

“Don’t,” Will swallowed and lay his forehead on Hannibal’s shoulder. “Don’t move. Just wait.” If Hannibal moved he was going to lose it. He wouldn’t last five seconds.

Hannibal leaned back and Will felt his breath on his face. “Will, look at me.”

It took more effort than he expected, but Will managed to pry his eyes open and meet the ones staring back at him. Hannibal’s hands were braced on the back of the chair so he wouldn’t have to put pressure on Will’s shoulder and he was breathing hard and heavy. One of his legs moved and it shifted everything, making them both gasp.

“Look at me,” Hannibal repeated.

“I am.” Will slid one hand up Hannibal’s sides, along his ribs, and came to a stop just below his shoulder blade under his shirt. His other hand gripped the thigh pressing against him tighter. Again, his mind supplied: _This is Hannibal._ This was not a culmination of events. This was not a climax of a sequence of moments. This wasn’t some grand finale. It was a promise. It was an acknowledgment of everything they were and could be to each other. It was everything Will had expected to be.

And that was just fine by him. “Move,” he said. His fingers dug into Hannibal’s ribs and their eyes stayed locked together. “Move now.”

Hannibal moved. The first time it was slow and unsteady, as if he wasn’t sure he’d be able to lift himself. He dropped down heavier than Will expected and he grunted at it, widening his legs and watching as Hannibal pushed himself up again.

They didn’t speak. Each and every time Hannibal would push himself up, Will would let out a soft sound of pleasure and his eyes would almost close before staring back up at Hannibal again. Every time he rolled his hips back down Hannibal would breath in hard and fast like he’d just been punched in the gut.

Will felt a warm slice of pleasure curl into his stomach and his hips jerked up just as Hannibal was coming down and after that they weren’t moving slowly anymore. Their eye contact broke and Will was staring down at where their bodies were joined and watching every thrust and Hannibal’s face was buried in his hair and the room was filling with the sounds of their skin and the moans that were beginning to get steadily louder with each passing second.

Will lifted his head and buried his face in Hannibal’s neck, wrapping his arms tightly around the other man’s torso and trapping his cock between their bodies. Hannibal was barely able to move up and down at all anymore, grinding their bodies together in the kind of forceful, delicious way that was driving Will insane.

“Fuck, Hannibal—can I—inside—“ Will couldn’t get a full sentence out to save his life, but he had to ask. It seemed like it was something you should ask someone.

His answer came in the form of Hannibal pressing into him harder and faster, and his voice gasping out words that made Will bite into Hannibal’s shoulder through his shirt just to keep it together. “Will, touch me.”

Somehow, through their grasping arms and moving bodies, Will managed to reach between them and grab Hannibal’s cock.

And that had been it for him. The moment he felt it in his palm, hard and smooth and so insanely overheated it was practically burning, Will lost it. He let out a loud sound into Hannibal’s shoulder as he came, gripping the cock hard in his hand and letting out an equally ruined sound when he felt it pulse in his fist. He wasn’t sure if he was cursing or saying actual words at all, but something had come out of his mouth and echoed in the room and he was pretty sure that wasn’t sweat, but tears burning in his eyes from the intensity of it all.

When they both came down, their bodies kept moving of their own accord. Slow, soft rolls and gentle pushes. They couldn’t seem to quite get out of the rhythm of it even as they got oversensitive and raw. Hannibal’s lips were pressing against Will’s cheek and jaw and mouth and they were kissing sloppy and lazy.

Eventually, they managed to stop moving and Will became aware of the sticky mess on his hand and chest and stomach and how Hannibal was still twitching convulsively around him and how the cool air of the room was making him aware of just how much perspiration he had worked up in such a short amount of time.

Not unusually, the first words that were out of Will’s mouth were not the ones he had meant to say. “You didn’t even take your shirt off.”

Chuckling, Hannibal sat back a bit and Will hissed as he felt his softening cock tugged by the movement. “Apologies.” Hannibal finished unbuttoning his shirt and let it fall to the ground with the rest of their mess and the situation immediately became impossibly more intimate.

Will’s lips parted as he looked at the body on display before him. Haltingly, he reached up with his clean hand and smoothed it over Hannibal’s chest, up his throat, along his shoulder. He traced his collarbone and slid down to his belly and brushed his knuckles over the small curve there. The whole time, Hannibal silently watched him, allowing him to do as he wished.

When Will reached Hannibal’s cock, red and soft and spent, he traced his index finger along it and Hannibal made a soft sound. Will’s hand traveled to his hip next, feeling out the bone and brushing over the hair at the top of his thigh. He reached backwards and felt down where he was still inside him and that time Hannibal did groan. Smiling, Will let his fingers glide from there up Hannibal’s spine and over his shoulders and down his arm. His eyes followed his hand wherever it went, watching the path as though mesmerized by it.

“You know,” he murmured. He carded his fingers through Hannibal’s chest hair and then wrapped his hand loosely around Hannibal’s neck. “You’re not the only one who is possessive.”

Hannibal raised a fine eyebrow, but Will could tell he was aroused even if he couldn’t get hard again. “Oh?”

Will continued to smile lazily. “Yeah.” His hand slid away from Hannibal’s throat and his thumb circled a nipple before his palm calm to a stop, resting on Hannibal’s stomach. Finally, he looked up and met the other man’s gaze. “I didn’t realize it at first. But then I found out that you took Bedelia with you when you ran away.” His thumb moved back and forth across the skin under his hand. “And I remember thinking ‘I’ll fucking kill her. He’s mine.’” Will laughed and shook his head. “At the time I thought I meant you were mine to—I don’t know—deal with, kill, whatever. But that’s not quite right, is it?”

Hannibal was staring down at him with that blank expression of his, but deep past the surface of it, Will could pick out something as clear as if it was written out in words. It was wonder.

“No, it wasn’t quite right was it?” Will continued. “Because I thought it again when I came to Italy and found out what had happened between you and Jack. At first I thought I was mad Jack had gotten to you first, but if I’m honest about it, I was mad because Jack had laid his hands on you. I was mad because he won.”

Hannibal was looking at him as though he’d never seen him before. “Because I’m yours,” he said softly.

Will’s smile turned lopsided and he pressed his hand just a bit harder into Hannibal’s stomach as if to make his point. “Yeah. Something like that.” And if he was honest with himself again, he would admit that the thing he saw in Hannibal’s eyes in that moment was love. He laughed. “Definitely something like that.”

.

Two weeks later, Will woke up to the sunlight hitting his face. With a sigh and a stretch, he rolled over under the arm currently laying on top of him. Hannibal was still sound asleep and for a moment Will simply stared. He would never get used to seeing him like that. When Hannibal slept, he was like any other person asleep. All the tension and stress would melt away from his face, leaving him placid and peaceful.

Somehow, he had expected Hannibal to be different in that respect. He had possessed some irrational expectation that Hannibal would maintain his somber, stoical expression even in sleep, ever the master of his own face. But no. He looked like anyone else.

Will found he didn’t like it. Seeing Hannibal sleep made him nervous. It made him feel as though Hannibal was somehow exposed and unprotected. When he let Will see the other sides of him, most of the time it was a willing, conscious exchange. When Hannibal slept, however, anyone and their mother could see him vulnerable and _normal_ and it just didn’t seem right.

Will knew there was no logical reason to feel this way. Perhaps he was just being overprotective of something that he had managed to find for himself, or maybe he was just trying to preserve his own internal recognition that Hannibal was not just any other man. Whatever it was, Will always felt anxious when Hannibal slept without him.

He reached over and brushed a loose strand of hair out of the sleeping man’s face and watched as he stirred.

“Good morning, Will.”

Will just hummed in response, toying with Hannibal’s hair. Now, Hannibal’s hair when it wasn’t combed and styled to perfection? That he liked.

“Today is the day, isn’t it?”

Will tried to nod, but the pillow hindered his movement. “Yeah. Today’s the day.”

“Are you ready?”

Will let his hand fall back into the sheets and looked at Hannibal’s face. “Ready? Not in the slightest.” When Hannibal frowned in concern, he chuckled. “I’m never going to be completely ready. Who knows what’s going to happen. I’m just going to go with it.”

Hannibal smiled and leaned up on his elbow, pressing a soft, full kiss to Will’s lips. “Just go with it, hm?”

Will returned the kiss before rolling away and getting out of bed. “Yep.” He adjusted his boxers and walked over to the window to look out across the grounds. With a sigh, he let his eyes roam over the trees and broken statues and morning mist coating the ground. Despite all that had happened here, he wouldn’t miss this place. It was time to move on. “You’ve got the train tickets?”

“As I have already confirmed this with you three times, you are welcome to check them for yourself,” came Hannibal’s voice from the bed. “They’re on the bureau.”

Will glanced over at the bed. Hannibal was lounging amidst the sheets, chest bare and glowing in the sunlight and covers twisted around his legs and doing nothing to hide his nakedness.

Hannibal caught his stare. “Or you could come back to bed.”

Will snorted and walked over to the bureau, picking up the tickets and inspecting them. “Our train is in two hours, Hannibal. We need to get going.”

“For someone who isn’t ready, you are certainly in a hurry.”

Will shrugged. “I’ve never been to Austria. Are there interesting things there?”

“And interesting people.”

Will cast an assessing look towards the bed, tossing the tickets back down on the dresser. He crossed his arms over his chest. “And do you plan on meeting some interesting people?”

Hannibal didn’t look the slightest bit put off by the look Will was giving him. “I always meet interesting people.”

“Any particular plans you want to tell me about?”

“As someone wise once said to me, I intend to just ‘go with it’.”

Will rolled his eyes and walked back over to the bed, crawling over Hannibal and settling comfortably atop his hips.

Hannibal traced the paths of his hipbones where they jutted out over the top of his boxers and eyed him inquisitively. “Are you concerned?”

Will reached out and took Hannibal’s jaw in his hand, rubbed a thumb over his lips, turned his head left and then right as though he was inspecting him. Hannibal kissed his palm and Will let out a breath. “Yes and no. We’ve been here over a month. The change is going to be a shock to both our systems, I think.”

“I won’t deny that.” Hannibal’s hands were sliding up the legs of Will’s boxers. “And if we meet someone interesting?”

Will chewed his lip and mulled over the question. It was something he had thought about a lot. Quite constantly, in fact. Once things had settled down between them and they had found a sort of flow to the push and pull of their dynamic—when they had decided where they stood—the question that remained was the one Hannibal was asking him now.

Was he going to be a willing bystander? A partner? An objector?

Will had thought about it a lot, so he was sure of his answer.

“I don’t know, but I want to find out.”

The pleased surprised on Hannibal’s face was vivid. “Is that truly what you want?”

Will took in a deep breath and memorized Hannibal’s face for the thousandth time. “When you first took me here, I made a decision, even before I made all the other ones. I said to myself ‘come what may’, and I stick by it.”

“It sounds like a fairly passive decision.”

Will made a sound of agreement. “It does, but it’s not. At least it isn’t now. I may not have understood what I meant by it at first, but I do now. To me, it’s the decision that I’m with you, whatever that means. I may not always agree with you and you may not always agree with me, but we don’t have to be on the same page every second of every day. How ridiculous would that be?”

Hannibal smiled. “It would be terribly dull.”

“I don’t know what I will object to and what I won’t, but I do know that I want to find out,” Will said quietly. Hannibal’s fingers were tracing over the smile on his stomach and he closed his eyes. “I want to see your world, but I can’t tell you which parts I’ll enjoy until I see them.” He opened his eyes and turned his gaze down to Hannibal’s hand on his stomach, watching the way those fingers mapped every millimeter of the scar.

“I enjoy the sound of that, Will.” Hannibal’s voice was a low wave in the air, brushing up against Will’s skin like a physical touch. “Come what may.”

Will wrapped his fingers loosely around Hannibal’s wrist, feeling every movement as he traced back and forth across his scar. Eventually, the hand came to a stop, pressing up against the mark like Hannibal was holding it in place—making sure it didn’t fade away.

“Exactly.” Will covered the hand with his own. “Come what may.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the comments you've all left so far on this story. They were all such wonderful, amazing comments--every single one of them.
> 
> I hope that you found the conclusion satisfying and the sex tasty. Or the...sex satisfying and the conclusion tasty. Either way is fine.
> 
> Also, a special thanks to the [playlist that mirayuuki gifted fannibal writers on tumblr](http://mirayuuki.tumblr.com/post/155813164208). I listened to it while writing this whole thing.


End file.
